Sharing Truth and Beauty with our Daughters

The young woman sitting across from me who was preparing to be married said with puzzlement, “How come I’ve never heard this before?” It is a question I have heard many times as a FertilityCare Practitioner when teaching couples about their fertility. Some couples come to me for help becoming pregnant. Some come to learn a safe, reliable, effective and morally acceptable way to plan their family. Many just come because their priest requires them to before they get married. Whatever their situation, it is a common experience that the couple has never heard about how their fertility works and has never considered how it relates to their sexuality and God’s plan for their marriage. Many women say that they wish they had been told about how their body works at a younger age.

It is common for people who teach FertilityCare or Natural Family Planning (NFP) to hear such comments. Thankfully, Mary Pat Van Epps, a Billings method teacher of NFP from Memphis TN, heard these comments often enough that she was inspired to do something about them. Mary Pat saw the value of educating girls and young women about the beauty of their fertility so they could grow and develop along with this authentic truth. She developed an age appropriate curriculum called the Mother-Daughter-Program to convey that truth.

Let’s fast forward twenty years later….We are at a parish in Sacramento with a group of around fifty moms and daughters. It is a delight to see these moms and daughters arrive for the program, their eyes lit up with eager anticipation of spending a day together celebrating the gift of their femininity. Some girls sit quietly, some fidget and look a little nervous, while others relax in the comfort and joy of being out with their moms to do something they haven’t done before. The room has a bit of a cheery feel as everyone waits for the day to begin. And so it does.

Welcome to the Mother-Daughter Program. It is a program for girls and their moms that explores the beauty and wonder of God’s plan for growing up and becoming a woman. There are two programs: one for girls ages 10-12 and one for teens ages 13-16. They cover similar matter while differing in depth and scope. The speakers range from teenagers to middle age moms and grandmothers. Since they are in all stages of life, they offer a breadth of experience and education within their talks.

The younger girls’ program features talks about virtues; good hygiene; nutrition; the goodness of femininity; the physical and emotional changes of the tween and teen years; and the joys and sorrows of being a mother. The older girls’ program covers the same topics but also discusses modesty and chastity; good decision-making; and what true respect for people around them, including friends of both sexes, family and themselves, looks like. In both programs, there is a slideshow presentation explaining in appropriate detail how the female reproductive system works. All aspects of the program are framed in light of God’s plan, presenting fertility and femininity as gifts to be treasured.

A favorite part of the program for both age groups is the Q&A panel. Throughout the day, the girls write down questions they have and submit them anonymously, which always results in an interesting mix of questions. The panel, made up of the program speakers, answer them, during a light-hearted partof the Mother-Daughter program.

Into the talks, slideshow, and Q&A, mix yummy snacks and a few surprises (including door prizes), plus the chance for moms and daughters to connect, and it makes for a wonderful day for both  mom and daughter. Often, mothers learn as much as their daughters do. It is never too late to learn of God’s great plan for our lives as women!

An incredible benefit of the Mother-Daughter program is that, in teaching truth about femininity, fertility, and sexuality, counterfeits are exposed. Let’s face it: our society teaches young people a lot about their fertility everyday, but what our society teaches usually falls short of the truth, or even flat-out contradicts it. We need to take time to educate ourselves about the truth so we can teach our children to recognize the counterfeits. Some moms who have attended the Mother-Daughter program say that it made their daughters aware of misuses of sexuality in their lives or in the lives of their friends, and made their daughters comfortable enough to confide those misues in their mom. They were able to turn to their moms for help because the Mother-Daughter program helped strengthen their mother-daughter bond.

Where else can you go with your daughter to hear the wonder and awe, truth and goodness of who both of you were created by God to be as women? And have fun and bond with each other while you do it? The experience of the Mother-Daughter program has the power to be life-changing for moms and life-forming for girls. Look for an opportunity to experience this program near you.