A workbook
The Becoming
Structured prompts for naming what is happening to you, and for going through it rather than around it.
US$39
Chapter I · Matrescence
ma.tres.cence
/muh-TRES-uhns/noun
The developmental transition a woman moves through when she becomes a mother - in the way adolescence is the transition into adulthood. It moves the body, the relationships, the work, and the sense of self. It is normal, and it has a name.
Matrescence is the developmental transition into motherhood, named by the anthropologist Dana Raphael in 1973 and left almost unused for decades afterwards. It is not a diagnosis and it is not a disorder. It is the passage itself, and most women go through it without ever being handed the word. Here is the word, where it came from, and what it lets you say.
In this chapter
Why nobody told you becoming a mother would feel like a loss
You were told about the stitches and the night feeds.
Matrescence vs postpartum depression - the difference that matters
Matrescence is a normal developmental transition. Postpartum depression is an illness.
What is matrescence? The word that names what new mothers feel
Matrescence is the developmental transition of becoming a mother, named in 1973 and still barely known.
Matrescence meaning: why this one word changes everything
The meaning of matrescence, in the sense that matters at four in the morning, is that the trouble is not you.
Matrescence definition - and why it matters that it exists
Matrescence is the developmental transition into motherhood: the physical, hormonal, neurological, social and identity changes that begin in pregnancy or at
The best matrescence books - what they got right (and what they missed)
If you read one book on matrescence, read Lucy Jones's Matrescence, published in 2023.
If the writing keeps running past the end
It is also in The Complete Passage, with the other three and The Threshold.