Matrescence: the word nobody told you about

There’s a word for what you’re going through, and almost nobody uses it: matrescence.

It describes the transition into motherhood — physically, emotionally, and in terms of identity. Anthropologist Dana Raphael coined it decades ago, deliberately echoing adolescence, because the two are remarkably alike: a whole-body, whole-life becoming, full of hormonal upheaval, shifting relationships, and a sense that you no longer quite recognise yourself.

The difference is that we expect adolescence to be turbulent. Nobody warns you that motherhood might be too.

Two true things at once

You can love your baby with your whole heart and grieve the life you had before. The spontaneity. The career momentum. The version of your relationship that existed before three a.m. feeds. The body that felt like yours.

Holding both of those at once isn’t ingratitude — it’s honesty. And pretending the change is small is part of what makes it so lonely.

Why naming it helps

When you have a word for an experience, it stops being a private failing and becomes something shared and understandable. "I’m a bad mother for missing my old life" softens into "I’m in the middle of matrescence, and this part is genuinely hard."

That shift — from shame to self-compassion — is where the work begins.

If you’re grieving who you were while loving who you’re becoming, therapy for matrescence makes room for all of it.