Matrescence: Becoming Mom
What is matrescence?
Matrescence is a term coined by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael to describe the developmental phase associated with becoming a mother. Similar to adolescence, this phase is associated with profound physical, hormonal, emotional, psychological, social, occupational, relational, and identity changes. These changes take time, and are often uncomfortable. There is an awkwardness about coming to know a new version of yourself. While adolescence prepares you to become an adult, matrescence prepares you to become a mother. The duration of time this phase lasts and the degree of distress and upheaval experienced during it may vary from person to person, but there are common threads through the experience that we will all recognize.
Why is this word important?
When we have language to describe our experience, it helps us to set our expectations appropriately. When we know what to expect, it is easier to accept the challenges inherent in this time. When we don’t know how to describe our experience, it is so much easier to feel alone in it. To wonder if we are the only ones having such a hard time. To wonder if we are not cut out for this whole motherhood thing after all. We can alleviate so much shame and suffering for new moms in helping them name their experiences.
How does this relate to mental health?
Mental health is not defined by the absence of pain, but rather by the presence of vitality. Motherhood is full of paradoxes, dialectics, both/ands. It is beautiful and brutal. If we believe that health in motherhood is defined only by joy, love, and sweetness, we are likely to feel shame, isolation, and guilt when we encounter emotions that do not fit into our expectations of ourselves and our experience during this time. The ways that we then shame and isolate ourselves put us at far greater risk of postpartum depression and anxiety.
Being a mom is incredibly challenging and demanding. And the transitional period in which we are still becoming is tumultuous. In my experience, even as a mental health professional, I wrestled with whether the distress I was experiencing was considered normative or whether it was considered clinically significant and a sign of a postpartum mood or anxiety disorder. The answer was a complex mix of the two, but the deeper and more important truth was that I needed some support with all of what I was experiencing and I needed to feel like it was okay to ask for it. I didn’t need to wait until my distress escalated into diagnostic territory to get support, and neither do you.
