This word could completely change your experience of motherhood, for the better.

It certainly transformed mine.

This magical word is matrescence.

The term matrescence was coined to define the process of becoming a mother by the anthropologist Dana Raphael in 1973 (the same woman who first defined the role of Doula. A woman way ahead of her time).

More recently, Dr Aurelie Athan described matrescence as being like adolescence: it is a time in a woman’s life when everything changes, and her whole identity shifts. She explains that “when a woman becomes a mother, she splits in two: who she used to be, and the Mother she is. And unless we honour that radical shift, she will get lost trying to figure out who she is.”

Sound familiar?

Think about this: since having your baby, has your body changed? Are you experiencing more intense, and perhaps overwhelming, emotions? Do you find that how you think about yourself, the people in your life, and world events, has changed? Have your relationships changed? Are you questioning your role within your family, in the workplace and in society?

This was my experience after my daughter was born, and I have heard a version of this from almost every mother I have worked with. When I was pregnant, I had every sleeping, feeding and baby care book, but I had no idea of the changes and challenges I was about to experience as a woman, wife, daughter, sister, and friend. Once I became a mother, I felt like I was navigating each of these relationships from a completely different perspective, and I had no roadmap. My sense of self was shaken to the core. It really was as if I had suddenly been dropped into a whole new world.

Maybe you experienced this too?

This is matrescence.

I suspect you may not have experienced this level of uncertainty and upheaval since adolescence. At least then, there was some level of understanding that you were undergoing normal physical, mental, emotional and relationship changes, and you were allowed a number of years to adjust.

Imagine…

 …if there was no understanding of adolescence, if people expected children to just change into adults overnight (which is what is expected of women who become mothers), and no allowances were made for the transitions that occur in teenage years… it sounds absolutely ridiculous, doesn’t it? And yet, this is exactly what happens to women who become mothers. Imagine if matrescence had the same level of recognition and acceptance that adolescence does?

Developing an understanding of matrescence finally gave me a framework to understand what was happening to me. All of the doubts, confusion, and uncertainty now made so much sense. It was completely normal to feel overwhelmed by the massive onslaught of changes to every aspect of my being. And for me, the biggest consolation was knowing that it wasn’t just me feeling this way, every mother undergoes these changes to some extent. There was nothing wrong with me. I wasn’t making mistakes, I was navigating the steepest learning curve I had ever been on.

The actual problem was that nobody was talking about any of this!

And 10 years ago, nobody was using the word matrescence to describe this universal experience. This is slowly changing, but not quickly enough. At the beginning of every workshop or group talk that I do I always ask for a show of hands of who has heard of matrescence, and consistently less than half the hands go up.  I would love for the term matrescence to be as widely recognised and used as the term adolescence, for all practitioners working with mothers to have studied matrescence as part of their training, and for it to be a core part of every antenatal course and postnatal check-up.

And actually, for real change to occur, it needs to be on everybody’s lips – every husband’s, brother’s, employer’s, colleague’s… so that everybody we encounter at least has an awareness that we’re in the midst of matrescence, and we are met with far more empathy and support than we currently are. Imagine…

If this has resonated with you, I invite you to spread the word. Share the link to this blog with someone you think it would help, or someone in your life that it would be helpful to your relationship with them if they had this insight into your experience of matrescence. I would love to hear about the conversation it opens up between you! Feel free to contact me here.