05/08/2026
Earlier this week I found myself talking to someone I'd just met about matrescence— and, as usually happens when this word comes up, I had to explain what it actually means.
Just like adolescence, matrescence is a time of becoming. A time when our bodies move through huge physical, hormonal, emotional, and cognitive shifts. It’s a profound transition — yet we’re still expected to “bounce back” to the woman we were before. And this expectation lands at a moment when our lives have often been turned upside down; when we may still be carrying physical and emotional after‑effects of pregnancy and birth; when our nervous systems are overloaded, we’re sleep‑deprived, and in almost constant service to a tiny human who relies on us for everything. It’s also a time when we realise we may no longer have the time, space, or energy to meet our own needs.
Motherhood can bring the highest highs. It can also take us to the lowest lows. Both things are true.
We’re overloaded with information, under enormous pressure, and often incredibly hard on ourselves. And many of us are showing up in new spaces, with new people, sometimes in rooms where being fully and authentically ourselves isn’t welcomed. (I’ve learned that any space where I can’t show up as myself is not a space I want to be. And I’ve learned that sometimes you have to look — really look — to find your people.)
The lovely man who listened to my passionate outpouring said he recognised some of what I described from his wife’s experience — but much of it was new to him. He didn’t know matrescence existed.
He and I spoke again the next day (we were on a course together on grief and loss - more about this later) and he told me he'd gone home and spoken with his wife about it. He told me he fully understood why I was so passionate about it.
I didn’t know about matrescence when I became a mother. Learning about it helped me make sense of my experience. I’m passionate about increasing awareness of this vital transition — a time of growth, not a hormonal blip we’re expected to “recover” from.
