If you’re new to the concept of matrescence, you’re not alone. Matrescence is the groundbreaking new science that captures the physical, psychological, social and emotional changes women go through during the monumental transformation that motherhood evokes.
Navigating matrescence can feel disorientating
→ You may feel like your identity is shifting, that you are navigating the liminal space between who you were, and who you are becoming.
→ You may be feeling overwhelmed with guilt, comparison and internal pressure to be a ‘good mum’
→ You may be asking big questions, who am I? What do I want? What is important to me now?
→ Your intimate relationships, friendships even the relationships with your own parents may be shifting and changing.
From brain changes in pregnancy, hormonal events, shifting identity, changing relationships and entering the social realm and rules of motherhood, when a woman becomes a mother she experiences intense changes during a very condensed window of time. The experience of matrescence can be experienced as both expansion and contraction, loss and gain.
This new research and understanding disrupts the traditional paradigm of believing becoming a mother is about creating babies. Finally we are acknowledging that when a child is born, a mother is too. Matrescence is one of the most significant transformations we may experience in our lives as women, and it deserves support and reverence.
Lineage of Matrescence
Whilst the concept of matrescence may be new to you, it is well established having first been described by Anthropologist Dr Dana Raphael in the 1970s.
“The critical transition period which has been missed is matrescence, the time of mother-becoming...Giving birth does not automatically make a mother out of a woman...The amount of time it takes to become a mother needs study.”
— Dana Raphael, Matrescence, Becoming a Mother, A New/Old Rite de Passage (1975)
Over the past 50 years, this concept has been built on by a lineage of incredible academics, writers and mothers in fields from psychology to neuroscience including Trudelle Thomas, Dr Aurelie Athan and Alexandra Sacks. There is now a growing body of evidence that recognises this forgotten rite of passage.
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Discover Matrescence
Do you feel like you have changed since becoming a mother? You’re not alone. Learn about the cutting edge new research that finally acknowledges the transformative experience of becoming a mother.