Matrescence or transitioning into motherhood
I don’t remember when I first came across the concept of matrescence. It must have been sometime after my first son was born - maybe even after my second son was born. I initially couldn’t really relate to it - that that transition into motherhood had affected my whole life and that was why I was struggling so much. It didn’t feel right - because no one had previously told me about this.
Yet once I read Amy Taylor-Kabbaz’ book Mama Rising, I knew that I was onto something. Amy writes that “motherhood changes you. Every fibre, every cell, every area. And with a little understanding, support and deep compassion, it will be the making of you”. Mama Rising defines matrescence as “the complete transformation and identity shift of a woman as she moves through motherhood - psychological, social, emotional, physical, economic, cultural and spiritual.”
Photo by Jenny
Matrescence changes us from the moment we decide that we want to become a mother - and it can be an all-encompassing change that affects our whole life, tracking cycles, hoping for periods to not come, being disappointed once they do. As we move through pregnancy, something shifts within us - but also in the way we are seen by society. Once we start showing, there’s the unsolicited advice or conversations, even belly touching. At the same time, if we are lucky, people will offer us a seat on a crowded bus. As a society, we recognise that something is happening, that a pregnant woman is more vulnerable. I was told that I wasn’t “sick”, only “pregnant”, so technically there was no reason for “sick leave” before the birth if all was going well (here in Switzerland there’s no officially maternity leave before birth, even though you can choose to take a certain number of weeks, which you will then be deducted from the maternity leave after the birth). Yet the exhaustion knocked me out, the nausea was so frustrating, sleep become scarce even before the baby was born and my mind was just elsewhere.
In hindsight, pregnancy itself was already a very confusing period of time. Everybody had a birth story to share or gave me advice on how I’d feel once the baby was born, how my priorities would shift. They did shift - but not in the way everyone had predicted! During my first pregnancy, I felt relatively calm. I managed to practice regular yoga until way into the third trimester, worked on breathing techniques and learned about yoga during birth. I knew yoga supported me in stressful situations so it was a practice I leaned on throughout my pregnancy. It helped me deal with the nausea, the back ache and it allowed me to keep moving even when my belly was so big I struggled to tie my shoes.
But everything else, every other decision that I had to take about pregnancy was guided by what other people had told me or how my friends handled it. I wanted to breastfeed for a year because that’s what one of my friends had told me she was doing. I absolutely wanted to avoid being induced and was very conflicted about the concept of a “natural” birth - everyone said it was “better”, particularly without any drugs, but at the same time, the pain sounded quite unbearable from the stories I had heard.
The ambiguity of motherhood
Matrescence is challenging in the patriarchal structures of society that we live in. We are not supported in reflecting on who we are in this season of life - we are expected to be the same, to work the same, to “bounce back”. What I have experienced and what is see around me is a lot of confusion: mothers who don’t know who they are anymore because they don’t identify with the image of the “perfect mother” who is constantly calm, spends every moment of her day with her child and loves it, has a paid job but doesn’t work too much but also not enough. The expectations that we have learned to have for ourselves clash with the way that we feel: vulnerable, confused, deeply exhausted, lost. We are told that we should love every single moment of motherhood, that we’ll fall in love with our child the moment we see them - but for many mamas that is not the reality.
Yet there is so much beauty in this transition when we can let this transformation unfold in a safe space. When we have the support that we need in order to become the person we are meant to be - softer, kinder, more graceful and gentle. We develop strength and resilience in a way that we’ve never experienced before. Mama Rising and my training as an accredited facilitator has thought me that as women, we follow our own rhythm and cycles. A lot of what is considered as “weak” or “bad” in our society, and particularly in the workplace - even if it’s maybe not directly spoken - is the essence of who we are as women. We function on a 28 day cycle that isn’t linear and that fluctuates every month - not on a 24h cycle like men. Our brains and hormones shift in a way that go from “I” to “we” once a baby is born: we look around us and see what needs to be done in the house, where our baby could hurt themselves, any dangers that surround us. And we try to anticipate them - or at least, it feels like we are constantly ON.
Not all of this is linked to our female biology - there is for example no scientific reason why women would be better at handling mental load than men. It’s just that we are usually the ones who are at home with our newborn baby for the first couple of months, particularly if we are breastfeeding, and thus we just take on the mental load, train our brains to do it - and end up stuck with this never-ending thoughts that raise our stress levels and keep us awake at night. A male brain would be just as capable at handling the mental load - ideally a part of it, so it’s evenly split between both partners.
“Motherhood changes you”
One thing is sure: you will not be the same as you shift through matrescence. And that is not a bad thing! Matrescence has helped me lean into compassion - and most importantly self-compassion. Treating myself with kindness, meeting myself where I am right now. I realise now that these learnings would have also supported me in previous seasons of life - for example when I was a student and struggling with regular digestive issues due to stress. But I’m very grateful to have learned them now - particularly because self-compassion is something that we can show ourselves on a daily basis without it taking up much time - it fits very easily even into our busy lives as mothers once we start leaning into it.
In the next weeks, I’ll introduce some of the concepts around motherhood and matrescence that I’ve learned with Amy Taylor-Kabbaz on my Instragram account @themamarewrite. Matrescence is a process that can take months, even years to navigate through - and it’s a process that we go through every time we become a mother again, in a slightly different way. If you are in the midst of it - I see you! I’d be happy to hold the space for you during a free discovery call to allow you to reflect on what you need right now and find clarity in your thoughts.
If you’d like to learn more about matrescence, I recommend of course Amy Taylor-Kabbaz’ book Mama Rising, as well as Matrescence by Lucy Jones, Motherkind (the book & podcast) by Zoe Blaskey and the work of Dr Sophie Brooke. Sophie Cliff’s book The Hustle Cure, though not particularly related to matrescence and motherhood, has been really helpful to learn about new routines and habits that support me in this season of my life.