House of Hormones - One Year Later

What happens when puberty and perimenopause clash at the same time in a family? You’ve entered the House of Hormones!

Twelve months ago a group of people from Parenting Across Scotland (PAS), the Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution (SCCR) and Workplace Menopause Support came together to deliver a Edinburgh Fringe show.

The idea for the show came from a conversation between PAS and SCCR. I can remember sitting at a table with (Events and Marketing Organiser) Caroline and (Service Manager) Jim as they talked about their work to prevent family conflict and their deep understanding of teen development. In a throwaway comment, I said the way they talked about the hormonal turmoil of puberty sounded a bit like menopause! I tucked the idea away and got on with other things.

About a year later I got back in touch with Caroline. I had come up with a name ‘House of Hormones’ and a concept – supporting families that are hit by puberty and perimenopause simultaneously. We agreed there would be many families in that situation across Scotland. As a mother of a teenager myself, I could see it was a reality for my peer group.

But after a bit of searching, we could find very little information or advice on this topic online. Why? Stigma? We’re still nowhere near getting menopause support right, so maybe it wasn’t surprising that this added complexity was overlooked. But maybe there was also an opportunity to do something about it.

We would need help from someone with menopause expertise. And that’s where Lyndsay Harrison came in – a nurse practitioner running menopause clinics in general practice and delivering awareness training as Workplace Menopause Support. The ideal collaborator. It seems implausible to say it now, but we found her through a Google search.

The fact that neither SCCR nor Lyndsay flinched when I suggested we launch House of Hormones at the Edinburgh Fringe says a lot about them. The project worked because everyone was prepared to give it a go. And because we also felt confident that whatever happened it would not be the worst or most badly attended show on the Fringe!

In the end it was so much more than that, however. On 21 August 2025, 125 people joined us at Dynamic Earth. We shared, we explored, we laughed. The feedback told us that participants felt reassured, less alone and better equipped to find support for themselves and their families. It worked!

Since that first day, we’ve delivered the show twice online and once more in person, reaching 595 people so far. And we’ve learned as much through the process as the audience has – particularly about the diversity of family experiences, whether that’s single parent households, black and minority ethnic households, families with LGBTQI+ members or families with neurodivergent members. We’re hugely grateful to everyone who’s attended and shared their perspectives.

We’re also thinking about the future. The more families have shared with us, the clearer it has become that House of Hormones was not just a one-off fringe experiment, but a way of opening up a much-needed conversation.

PAS now has a University of Glasgow summer research intern working with us to analyse the (anonymized) data we’ve collected so far to turn it into a policy briefing. And there will be further House of Hormones events to come.

But thinking again of that first day, 12 months ago, a particular memory resurfaces….

I’m standing with Katie from SCCR and Lyndsay on the ramp that will take us up behind the stage. We can hear the rumble of people in the audience and the PA playing Feeling Hot Hot Hot by The Merrymen. We take a breath, look at each other and say, ‘Let’s do this’.

Note: Many people have been involved in House of Hormones so far, but I want to thank the following in particular: Angus Doyle, Arran Goodfellow, Caroline Ross, Colin Waters, Emily Hall, Jim Gray, Katie Walker and Lyndsay Harrison.