Julia Neumann from Radically Alive Women speaks with parenting coach and "Tides" rites-of-passage facilitator Amy Weber and young woman Gabriela Fagundes about mother-daughter relationships, especially the transition of girls into womanhood.

Amy describes navigating the empty nest as a mother and how "Tides" and "Rising Tides" help mothers and daughters renegotiate patterns, create space, and recognise that daughters’ transitions also change mothers’ identities. She shares how community and ritual can help normalise and celebrate menstruation, and support both the daughter’s push for freedom and the mother’s grief and identity shift as she “becomes obsolete” in stages.

Gabriela shares her experience of pushing away, cutting contact, trying to change her mother, and eventually listening and meeting her mother as a woman, emphasising how judging or blaming mothers impacts accepting life.

They discuss generational patterns, dependence, and consciously creating new ways to honour first bleeding.

Practical suggestions include creative expression of feelings for mothers, and daughters writing a four-page love letter to their mothers.

Amy's and Gabriela's co-written book on first bleeding is in an open-ended “gestation” process without a deadline.

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For more information:

Amy Weber, heartconnectionparenting.com

Gabriela Fagundes, gabrielafagundes.com

Rites of Passage Foundation, which offers the "Tides" programme, tracks.net.nz

Article by Gabriela Fagundes on the topic, gabrielafagundes.substack.com/p/the-joys-and-challenges-of-motherhood

Julia Neumann, julia-neumann.com

Radically Alive Women, radicallyalivewomen.com