Matrescence. Motherhood expectations vs the stark reality.
6 min read
If you’d asked me how I thought Motherhood was going to change me and my life before I had children, I would have said that not too much and not for long. How foolish I was!
I thought: ‘I’ll keep working, having fun and kids will adapt to our rather indulgent lifestyle. I will be the same woman but with a new baby on toll”. Even during pregnancy, I held as much as possible to this lifestyle… We went to Glastonbury festival when I was 9 weeks and I remember looking carefully at all the parents there truly believing that THAT was going to be us in just a few years. 5 years later and I’m nowhere near to going to a music festival with my children and to be honest it’s not on my bucket list!!
The reality is that when I became a mother, EVERYTHING changed! I changed. Sometimes to the point of not recognising myself anymore.
During the first few months, I experienced lots of uncomfortable, painful and confusing feelings. I felt disconnected, battling with constant inner struggles - wanting to be there for my baby at every moment but missing my old life like crazy!
By the time my first was almost 3 and my youngest was about to turn one - I was still battling with some of these initial struggles plus new ones as my first was well into the terrible twos and I was negotiating life with two under two.
Matrescence is the process of mother-becoming. It starts before birth, it repeats with every baby and some say it may be life-lasting.
It was then that I discovered what I like to call the missing piece. It’s called Matrescence and it basically explained everything I had been experiencing for almost 3 years.
Matrescence is a term coined in the ’70s by an Anthropologist called Dana Raphael. (She also coined another term which you’re probably very familiar with: Doula).
While Doula is a widely known concept that is commonly used across both prenatal and postnatal health care, the term Matrescence got lost for many years.
“The critical transition period which has been missed is matrescence, the time of mother-becoming...”
Finally, in 2008, Reproductive psychologist Aurélie Athan, revived the term and started to do more research and work to explain it further - Matrescence like adolescence was born.
There’s no coincidence that both words sound alike. Athan, explains Matrescence as a developmental passage that leads a woman into motherhood the way adolescence leads a child into adulthood. Furthermore, she explains matrescence as a holistic experience that has an impact across bio-psycho-social-spiritual domains.
The power of Matrescence as a concept is very simple. It gives us a word. And this word validates our experiences as mothers, it gives us the language to talk about it and a new framework for maternity care.
“Words create worlds. When we have a lack of language and don’t know how to articulate our feelings, it makes the process incredibly difficult. We need words to heal.”
What happens in matrescence?
Like in adolescence, your physical and hormonal changes lead to profound changes in how you feel emotionally, how you think and how you fit into the world.
Like adolescence, matrescence can be uncomfortable; emotions like ambivalence, guilt, and shame are common and normal to experience.
Reproductive psychiatrist Alexandra Sacks explains the experience of matrescence as a “push and pull”. As a mother, you may experience the “pull” of wanting to care, protect and nurture your baby. The “push” is the other side where you are still you with your physical and emotional needs, trying to reframe your identity, your career, your social and your spiritual life.
The difference between what you imagined motherhood would look like versus what your real experience is, may lead you to experience more struggle and to grief that lost version of motherhood.
Why is it important?
Matrescence is the process of mother-becoming. It starts before birth, it repeats with every baby and some say it may be life-lasting. So, it’s not just about the fourth trimester, the first year or event the first 1000 days… this is about your new life.
Finding out about Matrescence was like an Aha! moment for me. It changed the way I saw myself and my experience of motherhood.
Matrescence can help you to understand yourself better and see yourself with more kindness and compassion. In my own experience, it allowed me to see Motherhood as an opportunity to grow and to evolve.
Understanding Matrescence also helped me focus on what’s really important, letting go of some control and accepting what is normal and part of the process.
Expectations vs reality
Before knowing about Matrescence, I usually blamed myself for these feelings of inadequacy and felt guilty for not loving every moment of motherhood.
The reality is that from the start, I had some unrealistic expectations of what my life as a mother was going to be like and how I was going to feel about it.
If I’d known about matrescence when I was pregnant, I would have probably given more importance to the postnatal stage rather than only preparing for labour and birth. And during those difficult first weeks and months, I would have probably been more patient and kinder with myself. I wouldn’t have judged myself that much.
Matrescence is so powerful because it gives all mothers - new and not so new, expectant mums and even to those who are still trying-to-conceive, the chance to reframe their expectations.
This is such a valuable opportunity because expectations can be everything. It’s when reality and our expectations don’t match when we experience more suffering and unhappiness.
When it comes to managing your expectations, a good start is to be mindful of what you see on Instagram, the media and what other people tell you about their own experiences. The perfect lives of new mums on social media are far from an unfiltered reality of motherhood. The truth is that there’s not such a thing as the perfect mother, we all have our lows and we are all going through matrescence which while it will be different and unique for every one of us, it’s certainly not glossy and shiny. Motherhood is messy!
A new beginning
The concept of Matrescence has been so important to me that it has now become the cornerstone of everything I do as The Mothership London, including my workshops, retreats and all the upcoming content and support I am working on to help women in their mother-becoming.
If any of this resonates with you, watch this space and follow me on social media to learn more about matrescence and to find advice in navigating these changes.
In a nutshell:
Matrescence is the developmental transition to motherhood. It’s a holistic experience that encompasses several domains including, physical, hormonal, psychological and emotional, social and spiritual.
Like adolescence, it comes with natural emotional discomforts such as emotions of ambivalence, guilt, and shame.
Beyond the profound changes, it provides mothers with an opportunity to heal, to grow and to redefine themselves and their place in the world.
Expectations play an important role in matrescence, as the reality of motherhood is often not what is expected - this is an opportunity for mums to reframe their expectations.
It ultimately provides the language needed for mothers to understand their experience, validate it and talk about it, as well as a framework to support them in this transition.
References
Celebrating International Women's day: from matrescence to reproductive identity, Dr. Aurélie Athan, 8/3/2021
Matrescence: The Developmental Transition to Motherhood, Alexandra Sacks, MD.
A new way to think about the transition to motherhood, Alexandra Sacks, MD. Ted Talk,