In 1973, anthropologist Dana Raphael coined the word matrescence — from the Latin mater (mother) and adolescence — to describe the profound developmental transition a woman undergoes when she becomes a mother. Like adolescence, matrescence involves hormonal upheaval, neurological change, shifting identity, relationship renegotiation, and a fundamental reorganisation of who you are in the world.
Unlike adolescence, matrescence receives almost no cultural recognition. We tell teenagers that their upheaval is normal and expected. We offer almost nothing to new mothers, who are instead told to "enjoy every moment" and presented with images of radiant maternal bliss. When the reality falls short of this — when a new mother feels disoriented, grieving for her former self, or struggling with the enormity of what has happened — she concludes that something is wrong with her.
Nothing is wrong with her. She is undergoing one of the most significant transformations a human being can experience.
What matrescence involves
Neurologically, a mother's brain physically changes during pregnancy and after birth — a process called neuroplasticity driven by hormones, physical contact with the baby, and the demands of caregiving. The regions associated with threat detection, social cognition, and emotional processing are reshaped. Brain imaging studies have shown that these changes persist for at least two years postpartum.
Psychologically, matrescence involves renegotiating your sense of self. Aspects of identity that felt core — your career, your social life, your body, your relationships, your sense of freedom — all shift. The self you knew before pregnancy must integrate with the self you are becoming as a mother. This integration is rarely smooth or linear.
The ambivalence nobody mentions
Maternal ambivalence — the simultaneous love and resentment, tenderness and frustration, longing for and irritation with your child — is one of the most universal yet least discussed aspects of motherhood. Psychoanalyst Roszika Parker wrote extensively about this, arguing that ambivalence, when worked through, can deepen a mother's relationship with her child rather than damage it.
Feeling ambivalent about motherhood does not make you a bad mother. It makes you human. Many mothers feel grief for their previous life alongside love for their baby, and the guilt this generates can be more damaging than the ambivalence itself.
What supports healthy matrescence
Having language for what you are experiencing — knowing that this transformation has a name, that others have been through it, that the disorientation is expected — is itself therapeutic. Beyond this: community with other mothers at a similar stage; permission to grieve the self you were before; therapy that honours the complexity of this transition; and a gradual, compassionate rebuilding of self that incorporates both the mother and the woman.
You are not losing yourself. You are becoming more.