During our third year in marriage, we decided it was time to have a baby. I cheerfully had my birth control implant removed from my arm (it was still eight years before we converted to Catholicism), and we went about our business, naturally assuming I would shortly come up pregnant.
Except I didn’t. Month after month went by, and my womb remained empty.
I was confused. Had I missed something important in my high school health class? Didn’t sex lead to pregnancy?
My conversion to Catholicism and thus to Natural Family Planning has been an eye-opening journey as I become aware of the astounding breadth of information I missed out on. And I am surprised that even within the Catholic community, many teenage girls are not being taught the basics of NFP.
It took seven months of timed trying as I slowly learned to navigate my own reproductive system, but we finally conceived. We went on to have three more healthy pregnancies, and I’m currently pregnant with twins, but our family-building has not been without effort. I have lost three babies, and every pregnancy has required planning and trying. Our twins are an exception, though, and here I have to insert credit to the intercession of Mary: I asked several of my friends to pray a week of rosaries with me, and we conceived the first month.
I imagine that my story is not unique. There are people who are infertile and people who become pregnant with surprising ease. Between those edges of the bell curve, there are women who need a little tracking and trying and giving their bodies a little extra support to conceive. And if those women attended a perfectly respectable public school and had perfectly normal parents, they are probably as clueless as I was. It is concerning to discover many teenage girls formed in the rich tradition of the Church are also clueless.
In addition to NFP’s role in family-building, there are numerous benefits to understanding the cycles of the female body that have nothing to do with conception or the avoidance thereof. Each month brings the cycle of symptoms and changes that impact our normal day-to-day routine. Almost any adult woman can tell you a story or decision in her life inspired by a hormonal shift, and we come to understand that some days we feel bloated or depressed or impulsive or easily aroused. These are all part of the four phases of a woman’s cycle. This would have been beneficial to learn much earlier in life, when the easy predictability of such feelings would have led to knowledge and freedom from emotional undulations.
Our culture today is working to eradicate gender differences. In 2021, approximately 42,000 children and teens across the United States were diagnosed with gender dysphoria—three times as many as in 2017. The culture’s statement to teens is that if they are uncomfortable or unhappy in their bodies, there must be something wrong with them. This is laughable to anyone who has endured puberty, but particularly to women, when each month brings a fresh cycle of discomforts and inconveniences. Knowledge of these cycles—what they mean, what causes the shifts, how to navigate them—can prevent a sense of feeling overwhelmed or embarrassed by being a woman, and rather understand it as a pathway to closeness with our creator.
As such, we can use NFP to begin teaching our girls about the beauty and dignity of womanhood. To fight the culture’s torrent of gender ideology, it is essential to celebrate the uniquely feminine aspects of their bodies and understand the troublesome ones. For girls, menstruation is the ideal time to talk more consistently about how the female form—both the beautiful and uncomfortable aspects—uniquely draw us to holiness. In the words of Fulton Sheen,
it is well known that women are capable of far more sustained sacrifice than men; a man may be a hero in a crisis, and then slip back to mediocrity. He lacks the moral endurance, which enables a woman to be heroic through the years, months, days, and even seconds of her life, when the very repetitive monotony of her tasks wears down the spirit.
Not only a woman’s days, but her nights—not only her mind, but her body must share in the Calvary of motherhood. That is why women have a surer understanding of the doctrine of redemption than men have: they have come to associate the risk of death with life in childbirth, and to understand the sacrifice of self to another through the many months preceding it.
Almost every aspect of our culture shouts messages of shame, rejection, and disgust around the female body. Our curves are reduced of objects of sexuality, our cycles are nuisances to be medicated, and children are offensive and worthy of murder. As parents, we must increase our efforts to counter these messages and remind our daughters their bodies are holy temples rather than confusing inconveniences.
The concepts of NFP and hormone tracking should be taught to every female as soon as she begins her monthly cycle. By the time she enters marriage, she should know the nuances of her body and be able to articulate them to her spouse. In addition to the obvious family planning benefits, a woman’s cycle can often be an indicator of health. Irregular or painful cycles can be a symptom of endometriosis and require medical intervention. Long delays between cycles are often caused by malnutrition. Stress, illness, and life changes can all impact our cycle and indicate how well our body is coping.
If this task feels daunting to you, fear not. Like many things in parenting, this can be a gradual process that brings about greater bonding between you and your daughter. Women are blessed to have a natural coming-of-age experience. Experiencing a period for the first time is an exciting rite that should be celebrated. It indicates to young women that they are entering a new phase of life, a transition for greater maturity, freedom, and responsibilities.
Her first period is the time for a girl to begin tracking her cycles in a simple planner and maybe indicate her emotions around the experience. When she comprehends her cycle, you can begin to talk to her about bodily indicators. As the years go on, you can add the use of a basal body thermometer and explain temperature changes around hormonal shifts. Our bodies give many signs of our monthly cycles, and by the age of eighteen, a woman should have a clear understanding of each one.
The years of scientific research behind NFP have gifted Catholics with tools that go far beyond the manageable spacing of children. Our understanding of the rhythms of the female body are unique within broader culture, and we should make greater use of them to prepare our daughters to thrive. The truths about biological sex, reproduction, and family life are some of the most countercultural aspects of our faith. So many of these truths are expressed in a unique way by the role of women and God’s unique design in their anatomy. It is vital that we succeed in teaching our daughters about their bodies in order to equip them with the knowledge and tools to navigate this time in history.