Matrescence: The Unspoken Experience

The inevitable shift into motherhood that no one talks about

When talking to other moms about the reality of motherhood typically comes back to a few common threads. One of those is the mental changes that happen, but no one really warns you about. Sure, people say that your life changes forever. But no number of “just you waits” can prepare you for the way your mind does too. Matrescence is a wild trip, but also this big secret. A shift no one can quite capture appropriately in words. A sometimes unspoken experience that, I think, should be part of the dialogue… Even if it’s hard to explain. Maybe telling our stories are the best way to put words to this era of juxtapositions that all mothers live through. Together, but alone. Never alone, but often lonely. Because by sharing our experiences, hopefully everyone will feel a little better.

It blows my mind that mothers go through such a traumatic experience like birth… You literally become a portal that brings another being into this world… And no one really talks about how fucked up it is. You just go back to life as normal.

But it’s never normal again.

What is matrescence?

Matrescence is the inevitable journey into motherhood. It’s a process in which everything changes. Your biology, psychology, everything you once thought to be true. Your economics, family dynamics… Everything changes. Some say that with every baby born, so is a mother. But for a mother to go through birth of her own kind, there needs to be a breakdown of the being that was before in some way.

It’s fucking wild.

Some of us might laugh it off over wine at this month’s book club. Like yay for you, you sat at the table that cuts the small talk to get straight into the TMI. I’m here for it. Hello, it’s me. But we know that laughter is a coping mechanism because if you don’t laugh, you might cry. I wouldn’t know from experience, but my assumption is that even the most boringly normal and mundane births are still traumatic in a way. Let alone the personal shift matrescence brings from that point onward.

A friend described birth to me like this, and I think it’s an accurate depiction: “You become a portal when you give birth, and I don’t think that portal ever closes.”

Our DNA and everything that makes us who we are legitimately changes. In your blood and your bones.

And don’t even get me started on how your vagina, while it does fall back into place, those muscles and folds never fit themselves in the exact same way again. It’s like the puzzle pieces got all jumbled up and chopped up to make a new puzzle while you were pooping on the bed with your knees spread in the air (if that’s the position you ended up in). Cute.

Matrescence was easier the second time around (for me)

I’m happy to announce that the second time around is less jarring than the first. Despite the crotch stitches. It even feels easy at times, but maybe that’s just because I’m comparing it to the shell shock of the first.

I know I’m going to be teary for no reason. I know I’m going to check that the baby is still sleeping multiple times in a row just to be sure. I know there’s going to be a few months where I don’t do anything alone.

In any given day, there’s multiple moments where everyone is touching me, climbing on me, and asking me to do something for them. Yet after they go to bed, I tip toe into their rooms no fewer than 2 times each to confirm they’re still tucked in like they didn’t just give me a run for it all day.

Dads might get 39 minutes on the toilet every morning, but moms do their thing at Mom Speed while wearing a sleeping baby. Because they’d rather bring a tiny friend than risk waking a ravished little monster who just ate but chooses the most inopportune times to be absolutely starving again.

To be clear, this isn’t a stab at my husband or any other dads out there. My husband is Super Dad ready to play before and after work, Daddy-rella who holds his share around the house, and a good partner. This is solely commentary on our lived experience as mothers, and acknowledging the fact that our days look different as the majority of being the default parent. Because even if you’re 50/50 after work hours, there’s still defaults to consider.

My second postpartum experience

When I’m being honest with myself, I can clearly see that I was lost after having my first. Not by any fault of his, but because I was entirely unprepared for the shift.

The role of mama came naturally to me. I was all in for researching baby sleep tog ratings and making baby food from scratch.

But me? As a human being and woman who is more than a mother? I wasn’t sure who that was yet. It wasn’t exactly a mourning of the past version of me because I didn’t really miss her, but a confusion about where to go next.

Parenting forces you to cut open the most vulnerable parts of your heart, asking each quirk “why are you like this?” Then you need to carefully select the pieces of you that will help you be the parent and person you want to be each day, and heal the broken bits. Reparenting and mindfulness. Channeling mindfulness as you parent. Learning who you really are, what’s a condition of your situation, and who you want to be.

Then one day your still sensitive heart learns how to break off and walk away as you watch in awe. You just created this tiny human being at the same time as recreating yourself.

No wonder so many of us end up confused in the weight of this aftermath that again, no one really warns you about.

I’ve probably mentioned that I like projects. I dove into the research and projects that come with having a newborn, then a baby, then a toddler. Parenting and reparenting myself. My personal identity was shook though.

The better it gets, the better it gets.

It turns out that all I needed was to have another baby in order to rediscover myself. At least partially. While I’m still working on this (aren’t we all?), I think I’m getting closer. Motherhood has opened me up to be vulnerable in ways I never would have before, and to be open to profound, quantum growth. It’s not linear. It’s anything but simple, despite how simple my days may seem now.

Thomas the Train.

Diapers.

3 homecooked meals a day. Snacks. Laundry. Dishes. Meltdown. Naptime.

Hide and seek. Play doh. Crafts.

Learning the alphabet.

Everything is mundane and beautiful and normal and exactly what I want, while also inviting the need for a break to pursue my own wants and goals.

But maybe “rediscover” isn’t the best way to explain this new feeling. It’s not like I’ve reverted back. I don’t need to ctrl + Z my way out of mamahood and back to my earlier self.

It’s more like I was catapulted forward into this state of radical candor, extreme self-awareness, and responsibility that I wasn’t expecting, but know I was in fact prepared for. I’ve shared that parenting others requires reparenting yourself. It’s effort. It’s hard fucking work. All while you’re still trying to figure out who you are. Maybe you’re similar to the old you at surface level, but there’s something about those scars that change everything.

Reclaim your identity, then and now

I think reclaim is a better way to describe it.

You get to reclaim the parts of you that you thought were less than or not good enough; and you get to reclaim the qualities that have been long forgotten. You realize how strong and capable you are. Reclaim your power, your peace, and everything that makes this latest version of you so you.

While I’m in the messy middle phase that’s partially disconnected from past and future, there’s also a newfound confidence. Like maybe I do know what I’m doing? My babies rely on my confidence to thrive, so I need to step up for them.

Of course, I don’t have this all figured out yet. But I’m learning. And by doing the work to learn who I am as Jill, the Mama, but not only a mom, I’m opening so many more doors of growth for myself. Because the better it gets, the better it gets.

Coming of age, but make it matrescence

Honestly, this entire blog post could be categorized under a coming of age story, but of matrescence age, not adolescence. Yet another evolution, this one largely uncharted. Undocumented in a positively raw way. We see and hear so often how hard motherhood is. And yes, it is hard. But it also is beautiful and rewarding and fulfilling and exciting. I wake up exhausted every morning, but also eager to see what my littles will learn today. I get to relive life through their lens, and the view from under 3 feet tall is pretty miraculous.

I think there’s a way to acknowledge how some things are simultaneously hard and beautiful—and one doesn’t detract from the other. But I also don’t want this to be left as simple “motherhood is hard and beautiful” because I think it’s so much more than that.

It’s raw. It’s hard. It’s fucking fun. There’s a weight that comes from all sides: The responsibility to show up your best for them, for you, for your husband, for your friends, etc. etc. etc. But with that weight comes a bigger reward. There’s nothing better than the first time they hug you. Like really hug you. Until you meet another milestone like that.

Remember: This is only my experience with matrescence

Through all of the above, I’ll never understand the “mommy needs a wine break culture.”

Like no, mommy doesn’t need a wine at the end of the day because her kids burnt her out. Yes, she might be burnt out. Yes, she may want wine. But it’s because she wants a glass of wine. Not because it’s needed in some way.

Even if it were quote needed, the exhaustion doesn’t mean the day wasn’t beautiful too. It’s a crazy kind of fucked up chaos that leaves you wanting more… Or scrolling through pictures of them after they go to bed.

This story is by no means complete. Maybe I’m wrong here and it’s just all a mess.

But through this mess brought on by matrescence, I’m realizing that maybe it’s not about what I do. Instead, maybe it’s about who I raise.