The Conversations Our Mothers Never Had

I had coffee recently with a friend who’s a few years ahead of me in this whole midlife thing. We talked about everything: parents, our children, hormones, stress, loss. All of it.

She’s recently lost both of her parents, and somewhere in the middle of talking about probate paperwork and family logistics, she said something that really stayed with me.

She told me she’s been making a point of talking to younger women about menopause. Not in a preachy way and not to scare them. Just honestly.

She’s been telling younger friends and colleagues not to ignore what’s happening in their bodies and to get support earlier. To find medical specialists who understand hormones before they hit crisis point. To ask questions and to stop assuming they just have to “put up with it.” And it struck me how unusual that still is.

Most of us didn’t grow up hearing women talk openly about menopause. Periods, maybe. Puberty, sometimes (although that was also a little vague), but menopause? Almost never.

A lot of our mothers, and certainly our grandmothers, just got on with it and endured it quietly.

They carried on raising families, going to work, looking after everyone else while dealing with exhaustion, anxiety, rage, brain fog, sleepless nights and bodies that suddenly didn’t feel familiar anymore. Not, because they wanted secrecy although it does remain a bit of a taboo, I honestly think many of them simply didn’t have the information, and if they didn’t have it, they couldn’t pass it down.

That’s why this conversation matters so much now because women are finally starting to speak to each other properly. Not just about hot flushes, but about confidence. Identity. Marriage. Libido. Sleep. Strength. Mental health. The strange feeling of not fully recognising yourself for a while. The more these conversations happen, the less alone women feel when it arrives for them.

That’s a huge part of why I care so deeply about the work we’re creating with The Midlife Movement Method. I don’t want women arriving at midlife already exhausted, frightened and disconnected from themselves. I want them to feel informed and empowered with tools to support their wellbeing properly during this shift.

I want them to understand what’s happening in their bodies before they start thinking they’re failing somehow.

I want movement, rest, nutrition and hormone health to become normal conversations, NOT something women desperately Google or ask Claude at 2am wondering what’s wrong with them.

And I think we also need to start talking to women who aren’t there yet. Not with fear.

Not with doom. But with honesty, because preparation changes everything.

If someone had sat many of us down ten years earlier and explained what hormonal shifts can actually feel like, how many women would have suffered less in silence?

How many would have felt less shame?

Less confusion?

Less self-blame?

Maybe our mothers didn’t have those conversations with us because nobody had them with them, but we can do differently now. We can be the generation that talks, that shares information instead of whispering it. The generation that helps other women feel less alone in their own bodies and honestly, that might be one of the most important things we pass on.

Ps. If you want to start your midlife movement journey, join me for my 4-week Awaken Barre journey designed to meet you where you are and support your wellbeing during perimenopause, menopause and beyond.

Discover Awaken Barre 🤍