Matrescence: becoming a mother and parent

As we start the slow transition out of our collective covid haze, I want to talk about my experience of matrescence. Matrescence is akin to the word adolescence; it describes an awkward transition period of becoming a mother that involves body changes, hormonal changes, emotional obstacles, and social change. When I learned about the word matrescence after giving birth, its meaning immediately clicked as I compared the physical and emotional body shifts of adolescence to matrescence. The crazy hormones, new undesirable physical features, the feeling that my body was not mine. I had felt these things before a long time ago. I think it’s a helpful comparison for expecting parents.

I gave birth to my first child shortly before the world shut down due to covid-19. I was getting ready to go back to work in April 2020 and looking forward to being more social. Of course, that didn’t happen. Instead, my little family and I remained isolated for almost a year and a half. We did venture out a couple times and risk seeing family and a couple friends, but for almost a year and a half, we were basically on our own raising our baby through the pandemic. My experience of matrescence paralleled my experience of the pandemic and each greatly informed my perception of the other.

During my first year as a parent, I experienced many firsts - unconditional love for my child (knew that one was coming), pushed my physical body as far as I ever have, experienced a trance-like state for hours during labor, extreme exhaustion during the post-partum months, parental collaboration, total selflessness, depression (unexpectedly not until months after birth), mandatory social isolation, breastfeeding, unclogging blocked milk ducts, the list goes on…

2020 was a difficult and beautiful time. I don’t remember most of the details because the human brain is a magical tool that helps us forget the struggles of birth and early child-raising in order to do it again. I had very little expectations or preparations for becoming a parent and so everything was quite new and difficult. The lack of in-person social support was very difficult and meant I relied on Facebook strangers and Google for tips on raising my child. I also called my sister a lot, but I usually needed help at 3am so the internet seemed best.

I did a project in 2021 where I put my matrescence transformation on display as an art installation called Matrescence and invited friends and family to talk with me about it 1 on 1 at a scheduled time. Almost all sessions were held over Zoom even for friends that lived nearby. It helped me to process my own transformation and connect with others who had been through similar experiences or friends who were curious about it.