You’re Not Failing At Motherhood, You’re Just Becoming A Mother

Nobody told you it would feel like this.

You imagined you’d feel it immediately, that rush of knowing, that instinctive certainty that you were made for this. Maybe you did feel it. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you felt it one moment and then complete confusion the next. And somewhere along the way, a quiet voice crept in: why doesn’t this feel more natural?

Here’s what that voice doesn’t know: there’s a word for what you’re going through. And it literally changes everything: Matrescence.

What is Matrescence?

Matrescence is the process of becoming a mother, the physical, psychological, emotional, relational, and identity transformation that happens when a woman has a child. Think of it like adolescence for women. We have an entire framework for understanding that teenagers are in the middle of a massive identity transition; there bodies are changing, their sense of self is shifting, their relationships are reorganizing. We expect them to be a little lost. We give them grace. We give new mothers almost none of that.

The term was coined by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s and has been more recently brought into the mainstream conversation by developmental psychologist Dr. Aurelle Athan.

Instead of grace, we hand a woman a baby and expect her to just know. We talk about “maternal instinct” as thought it’s a switch that flips at birth. We send her home from the hospital in two days and ask if she’s “feeling back to normal” by six weeks.

But there is no getting back to normal because the woman who existed before is not the same woman holding that baby. And that’s not a problem. That’s matrescence.

What Actually Changes When You Become A Mother?

I want to just say everything…but let’s get into it.

Your brain is literally rewiring. Research shows that pregnancy and the postpartum period trigger significant changes in gray matter in the brain. Changes that persist for year and are thought to support attunement and bonding with your baby. Researchers are actually able to tell who is a mother and who is not just by looking at brains. Your brain is not the same as it was before. This is called neuroplasticity of matrescence and it’s remarkable but it also means you may feel foggy, different, or like you’re meeting yourself for the first time.

Your identity is reorganizing. Who you were before - your career self, your social self, your sense of what you wanted and what mattered - all of it gets thrown into the air. Some of it lands in the same place but a lot of it doesn’t. This disorientation is not a sign that something real and significant is happening inside of you.

Your relationships are shifting. Your partnership changes, your friendships change, your relationship with your own mother shifts in often unexpected ways. You may grieve relationships that can’t hold the new version of you. You may find yourself craving new ones that can.

Your body is different. Not just postpartum recovery, your hormones, your nervous system, your relationship to your physical self. Many women feel like strangers in their own skin for a long time after birth and almost nobody prepares them for that.

Your values and priorities are shifting. Things that mattered deeply before may feel distant. New things may feel urgent and consuming. This isn’t you losing yourself but becoming more.

The Myth of Maternal Instinct

Let’s talk about this directly, because it does so much damage.

Maternal instinct - the idea that mothers naturally and automatically know how to care for their babies - is real in some ways and wildly overstated in others. Yes, your body produces oxytocin. Yes, your brain is wired to respond to your baby’s cries. But knowing how to soothe a colicky newborn at 3am? Feeling confident and connected every single day? How to introduce solids? How to know if your baby is eating enough? That is not instinct. That is learned, that is practiced, and it takes time.

When we tell women that motherhood should feel natural, we set them up to interpret their very normal struggles as personal failures. We pathologize the learning curve. We make them afraid to admit they’re overwhelmed, because admitting it feels like proof they weren’t cut out for this. You were cut out for this, you’re just in the middle of it.

This Is Why We Need to Talk About Matrescence

When women have language for what they’re experiencing, things can shift for them. The shame can loosen. The isolation lifts a little. The question changes from “what is wrong with me?” to “what do I need right now?”

Matrescence isn’t a disorder. It’s not postpartum depression (though PPD can absolutely happen alongside it). It’s a developmental stage. One that deserves the same recognition, support, and compassion we give to any other major life transition.

You are not failing at motherhood. You are just in the middle of becoming one. And that is allowed to be hard.

Ready To Feel Support?

If you’re in the thick of matrescence and could use a space to process the shift - the grief, the disorientation, the love, all of it - I’d love to connect. I work with moms navigating the perinatal journey at Find & Flourish Counseling with in-person sessions in Lafayette, CO and Telehealth across Colorado.

You don’t have to figure out who you’re becoming on your own. Book a free consultation call and let’s talk.