You expected to be tired. You expected the diapers, the night feeds and the laundry that never ends. What you may not have expected is the quieter, stranger feeling of looking in the mirror and not quite recognizing the woman looking back. Your priorities have shifted. Your friendships feel different. Your body, your relationship and even your sense of humour seem to belong to someone new.
There is a word for this, and once you know it, a lot of things start to make sense.
What is matrescence?
Matrescence is the developmental transition of becoming a mother. Medical anthropologist Dana Raphael coined the term in the 1970s, deliberately echoing adolescence. Like adolescence, it is a full-body, full-identity passage: physical, hormonal, emotional, social and even spiritual.
For decades, the word sat mostly in academic circles. Clinical psychologist Aurélie Athan of Teachers College, Columbia University, helped revive it, framing matrescence as a normal developmental stage with the potential for both struggle and growth. Then, in 2017, reproductive psychiatrist Alexandra Sacks brought it to a mainstream audience with her widely shared New York Times essay, "The Birth of a Mother." Her point was simple and radical: research focuses heavily on how the baby turns out, but the mother's own transformation deserves attention too.
It's not only in your head (but it is in your brain)
The identity shift has a biological dimension. A landmark study published in Nature Neuroscience scanned women's brains before and after their first pregnancy and found measurable changes in grey matter, particularly in regions tied to social cognition, that were still largely present two years after birth. First-time fathers in the study showed no such changes.
Importantly, the researchers did not frame this as loss. According to the study's announcement from the research team, lead author Elseline Hoekzema compared it to the synaptic pruning that happens during adolescence, where the brain becomes more efficient and specialized. The team described it as a possible adaptation toward motherhood, one that may help a mother read her baby's needs.
In other words, the comparison to adolescence isn't just poetic. Something real is being rebuilt.
What matrescence can feel like
Because no one names it, many mothers assume the turbulence means they're doing something wrong. Common threads include:
- Ambivalence: loving your child fiercely while also missing your old freedom, sometimes in the same breath.
- The fantasy versus the reality: the motherhood you imagined meeting the one you're actually living.
- Shifting relationships: with your partner, your friends and especially your own mother, as you see her through new eyes.
- A changing body: one that may look, feel and function differently than before.
- Questions of work and ambition: wondering where your career fits, and whether you still want what you used to want.
None of these feelings make you a bad mother. They make you a woman in transition.
Matrescence is not a diagnosis
It's worth being clear: matrescence describes a normal passage, not an illness. Sacks has emphasized that it is distinct from postpartum depression and anxiety, which interfere with daily functioning and need professional care. If you're experiencing persistent low mood, intrusive thoughts, or feel unable to cope, talk to your doctor, midwife or a perinatal mental health specialist. Getting help is part of taking care of the mother, too.
How to honour the shift
Name it. Simply knowing the word gives the experience shape. You are not losing yourself; you are becoming someone.
Expect a timeline, not a moment. Adolescence takes years. Give your new identity the same patience.
Find your mirrors. Other mothers who are a little further along can reassure you that this disorientation passes, and that something steadier waits on the other side.
Keep one thread of the old you. A walk, a playlist, a creative habit, a friend who knew you before. Matrescence isn't about erasing who you were; it's about integrating her.
We throw showers for the baby. Perhaps it's time we also made room to welcome the mother.
Related reading
- Matrescence: The Word That Finally Names What You're Going Through
- When "Mom" Becomes Your Only Name: On Reclaiming Your Full Self
- Losing Yourself in Motherhood? The Identity Shift Nobody Prepares You For
- Rage, Grief, and Unexpected Joy: The Full Emotional Range of Becoming a Mother
- The Mother You Didn't Expect to Be — and Why That's Okay
