What Is The Danger In Not Teaching Young Girls Cycle Tracking?
What if teaching our daughters about their cycles wasn't a slippery slope, but actually one of the most protective gifts we can give them?
In this episode, Rita sits down with her dear friend Katie Vidmar — body literacy and fertility awareness educator, founder of the Body Literacy Project. Together they tackle one of the harder questions Catholic and Christian moms quietly wrestle with: Will teaching my daughter about her fertile signs lead her astray?
Katie's answer — rooted in faith, science, and real stories — might shift the way you think about this entirely. What Rita and Katie Unpack
* The story of a friend who grew up feeling deep shame about a normal sign of health — and the conversation with her mom years later that changed how she'd raise her own daughters
* Why keeping women illiterate of their bodies is, in Lisa Hendrickson-Jack's words, "an act of systematic disempowerment" — and how that applies on both sides of the cultural conversation How body literacy actually has a protective effect on adolescent behavior (with research to back it up)
* The connection between body literacy and the pro-life cause — why seeing your own body as sacred matters When to start the conversation with your daughter (hint: earlier than you think) A story of a 15-year-old whose cycle tracking led to a diagnosis of premature ovarian insufficiency — and how root-cause care addressed her clinical anxiety without psych meds Why hormonal contraception, even when prescribed for "symptom management," carries risks most women are never told about
Resources Mentioned The Fifth Vital Sign by Lisa Hendrickson-Jack Teen Star — research on body literacy and sexual risk avoidance education Dr. Richard Fehring's research on hormonal contraception and the moral hazard effect FEMM protocol — restorative reproductive medicine for cycle abnormalities
Katie Vidmar → https://www.katievidmar.com/ [https://www.katievidmar.com/]
The Mother–Daughter Health Workshop — Starts May 11th If this conversation has stirred something in you, this is your next step. Rita and Katie are co-leading a four-day workshop designed for moms and daughters together — and you can still join even if you're watching after May 11th, because every session is recorded with lifetime access.
Here's what's inside: https://healthandhormones.org/mother-daughter-2/ [https://healthandhormones.org/mother-daughter-2/]
1. Katie Vidmar on how to teach your daughter to track her cycle (including off-smartphone options for the moms who, like Rita, are holding the line on phones for a few more years)
2. A session on kitchen skills and real food — supporting healthy hormones through cooking and joy, not restriction
3. Healthy relationship with food — especially valuable if you or your daughter has struggled with disordered eating
4. Rita on cycle syncing, hormonal balance, and the red flags that signal "common but not normal" — the things we shouldn't just live with.
https://healthandhormones.org/mother-daughter-2/ [https://healthandhormones.org/mother-daughter-2/]
Before You Go If this episode resonated, the most meaningful thing you can do is send it to one mom in your life — the friend, sister, or daughter-in-law who's quietly wondering how to navigate this with her own girls. She doesn't have to figure it out alone. And if you haven't yet, subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. What questions did this conversation raise for you?
Send Rita a message — these are the conversations she most loves to have.
