Empowering Matrescence: Empathy, Individuality, and Redefining Motherhood

18/7/2021

A few months ago, my mother looked at me and asked, why do you look mad? I said: Mama, I am not mad this is just my new Mama face.

You see, my transition into motherhood strengthened old vulnerabilities while simultaneously creating new ones- a true test in becoming. In giving birth to my child, Arafat, I gave birth to a new self: Mama Razan, with the seemingly angry face.

Riddled with intense emotional highs and lows, this tumultuous journey found a name: Matrescence.

Matrescence is the physical, hormonal, emotional & social transition into motherhood: the way life will never be the same again. It has since become one of my favorite terms.

Theoretical Foundations of ‘Matrescence’

Coined by Medical Anthropologist Dana Rafael who identified that Western culture has not been attuned the women’s own transition into motherhood, rather shifting all focus to the baby after birth, Matrescence came to reconcile this transition by shifting focus to the mother.

In a 1975 article titled Matrescence, Becoming a Mother, A “New/Old” Rite de Passage, Rafael notes that “The critical transition period which has been missed is Matrescence. The time of mother-becoming... Giving birth does not automatically make a mother out of a woman... The amount of time it takes to become a mother needs study.”

Embracing the Multifaceted Journey of Motherhood

While this rarely studied term was coined in relation to Western Culture, I find in its treatment, close connections to the lived realities of new Mamas in Palestinian culture as well. With all attention focused on the baby, a new mother is granted 40 days of socially-sanctioned support to process this transition, and 40 days only. This absurdly limited time can never contain the immense physical, emotional, and hormonal shifts of Becoming a Mama. Not to mention the hormonal changes a new Mama is experiencing, especially with the increased release of Oxytocin which facilitates bonding and attachment between Mama and her new child at a cellular level.

What is even more concerning is that new Mamas are not given the time nor space to reconcile this transition on their own. It comes coupled with countless infringements that leave Mamas unable to lead their unique Becoming, rather getting pushed into romanticized and often outdated molds of motherhood. As if there is one way to become a mother, a truly strange notion.

Matrescence has become such a romanticized notion that experiencing anything but pure bliss feels taboo, and so more often than not, once new Mamas will never discuss their experience beyond that mythical bliss, beyond the role of the sacrificing mother they had to assume. How disheartening it is for us to encourage new Mamas to be martyrs to their matrescence rather than claim it to be uniquely ours. The new vulnerabilities that emerge out of Becoming A Mama can a be true source of strength if they are not discussed at as weaknesses, if new Mamas are not overwhelmed with half-true, highly romanticized stories.

This emotional tug of war leaves new Mamas unable to figure out how to care for their new self, how to find and nourish the new strengths they have just given birth to.

Minutes of My Matrescence

In an earlier version of this post, I wrote that ‘my matrescence was not my own’, but today I find myself reflecting on this very statement. Is matrescence meant to be an individual journey, or is it necessarily a communal experience? Through this journey, people entered my body intimately, and as someone with a lot of personal boundaries, I was left angry. Suddenly my matrescence had multiple stakeholders, many of which claimed it without looking at me, hearing me, or attempting to understand the journey that has led me to this version of myself.  Many of us who have grown up in communal societies have long struggled to carve out independent spaces for our own growth, our own unique evolution, to be able to stand up and yell I am not okay, I need space to heal!  This was no different.

Part of the chaos I faced in my matrescence resulted from the barrage of unsolicited opinions consistently thrown in my face by others, a reality faced by mothers worldwide. People from all walks of life, regardless of their experience with children, often assume an air of expertise when interacting with new Mamas. And it is not that I did not value these opinions, but most of the time, they came from people who consistently failed to ask: how are you doing? People who consistently failed to show up at my emotional lows, instead infringing on my emotional peaks, leaving me with the feeling that they are stealing my experience, my matrescence. As much as I wanted to shut down in the face of this narrative, I could not, I understood where it was coming from and so I made allowances for it at my own expense. You see part of the reason why these mothers around me had assumed such a role because for generations, Palestinian women were wed at an early age, and were giving birth at an early age and so they relied on older women for help, and these older women assumed this role formidably.

Fostering Empathy in Matrescence

I have had countless conversations with new Mamas around my age struggling with this very tug-of-war, attempting to carve out their path, to claim their matrescence, painful or not. On the one hand, they are treated with the same vulnerabilities that had catered to previous generations and the narrative of a first time Mama, a young Mama, who must be filled with bliss because she has become a mother.

And I cannot even be mad at that either.

You see, all these Mamas taking your child in their arms to tell you how to act, how to feel, constantly comparing your child to theirs, clinging to any opportunity to demonstrate the perfection of their work are only doing so because society has enabled their power through motherhood, and motherhood alone. It has become the gauge in which they measure their own progress, their own achievements, their own happiness.

With consistent attention to the child, these mothers never monitored their own transition into motherhood, and so they were never able to claim the pain born of matrescence to turn it into strength. When they became new Mamas, very few looked at them, asked them how they were doing, or tried to understand what personal path they want to carve. Instead, they were told they needed to be martyrs for their children, because that is what a mother is largely perceived to be.

Months passed by and I later realized that many of these comparisons are mere attempts by once-broken mothers to reconcile with their past, to mirror what they once experienced so that they can find peace in their past, in who they have become. Long suppressed sadness and anger have enabled mothers to essentially turn on each other. What saddens me the most about this reality is that these Mamas will often have valuable knowledge and real experiences to share. So why not share how this sadness has built strength inside us?

For me, the painful thing is that while these Mamas were attempting to reconcile with their past, I myself am attempting to satisfy the little girl in me which has always envisioned Becoming a Mama. And in a truly Razan fashion, this path was always going to be my own.

Redefining Motherhood on Our Own Terms

There is so much love in Matrescence, and for a really long time I could not feel it. Instead, I was absorbed in a cycle of rage that emerged out of not feeling that bliss 24/7, out of refusing to be a sacrificing mother, out of my attempts to claim my Matrescence.

I am proud to say that today, my Matrescence is own. I have insisted on spending just as much time discussing my lows as I do discussing my highs. Honouring the individual while preserving and valuing the communal.

Many argue that matrescence lasts a lifetime, but the reality is that this pivotal life passage remains largely unexplored. This article is a first attempt to deconstruct what matrescence looks like for me in Palestinian society in its first stages, but what is needed now if for us to collectively figure out the tools and modalities of support that Palestinian society needs to create for women to be able to transition into their motherhood the way they choose to. Palestinian society needs to create the tools and support systems that allow Mamas to speak openly about their experiences in all of its dimensions, claim their matrescence as their own without isolating themselves from the collective society, and redefine motherhood beyond the idea of sacrifice.