Matrescence — the term used to describe the transition and metamorphosis that women go through during early motherhood is a hot word on the lips of those who work in the childbirth and maternity industry, women’s health experts, journalists and authors. Although the idea was first discussed by American anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s (Raphael also introduced the word ‘doula’ to modern vocabulary), it wasn’t until a decade ago that the word made its way into everyday use after being reintroduced by American Psychiatrist Dr Alexandra Sacks. Today, if you following childbirth or parenting content on social media you cannot go for more than a couple of days without seeing a matrescence related post.
Talk of matrescence is important. The physical and psychological changes that women go through in the early months and years of motherhood are astounding; a new hormonal landscape changes her in body, brain and mind. Societally new mothers are treated differently, we behave diferently towards them, politically they have had to fight — and are still fighting — for equality in the workplace. Everything is different and yet we bombard new mothers with advice to “get back to normal”, whether that be regaining their ‘pre-baby body’, hobbies, or career. There is no going back however, because everything has changed and these messages serve only to make a mother feel more anxious and confused and dent her self-esteem and confidence during a highly vulnerable period of time. Yes, we must all talk about matrescence, every professional who works with new mothers must understand it and most importantly, the mothers themselves should have more information about the metamorphosis they are undergoing. They should be given more grace and far more support.
When we speak about matrescence however we are only considering half of the picture. You see, mothers do not only undergo one transition. Arguably they have to adapt and grow constantly, but there is one other stage that also affects them physically and emotionally for them to traverse. This is the stage of ‘later parenting’, guiding their children through adolescence and preparing them to fly the nest, while they themselves are transitioning through the peri-menopause and menopause and often juggling changes in career and caring for their ageing parents too. While matrescence is the era of learning to ‘hold on’ to their children and tackling the often stifling need for connection that infants bring, this era is one of learning to ‘let go’, not only of our teens and young adults, but of our dreams for them and the expectations of where we thought our life would be at this stage.
Fifty long years after matrescence was recognised by Raphael I believe it is time we talk about the other transition. Finally society is talking about the menopause and ‘mid-life’ women more, we are emerging from invisibility. We exist and we are struggling with motherhood just as much as our beginner counterparts, only all parenting support is aimed at the first three or five years of life. Where is the help, the classes and groups for those of us raising teens? Where is the ‘teenternity leave’? This stage of ‘late parenting’ transition is so little talked about however that it doesn’t even have a name.
While holidaying in Greece and learning about the lore of their gods and godesses I came across the story of Demeter. Demeter was the goddess of the harvest. Daughter of Rhea and Chronus, and sister and consort to Zeus, Demeter gave birth to a beautiful daughter; Persephone. One day, Persephone was captured by Hades, god of the underworld and forced into marriage. During her search for her beloved daughter, Demeter’s grief caused the harvest to fail and the earth to become barren. Upon seeing the impact of Demeter’s angst, Zeus agreed to help. Hades agreed that Persephone could return to earth if she had not eaten from the delicious fruit of the underworld; the pomegranate. Sadly Persephone had been tricked into eating from a pomegranate and had already consumed six seeds. Hades relented however and allowed her to return to earth, but insisted that she had to return to the underworld for one month for each seed she had consumed. For the six months her daughter lived with her on earth, Demeter was happy, crops flourished, plants grew and flowers bloomed, but for the six months she returned to the underworld this growth ceased, until the time came for her to return again. I instantly felt an affinity with Demeter, with her life’s focus on nurturing and loving her daughter and then having to make peace with letting her go, not forever, but just for a season. The parallells with raising a teen and young adult and the constant push and pull, holding on and letting go required of this stage and the need to be at peace when alone, learning who you are now, after forging an identity of caring for a child for so long made me finally feel seen.
When writing my new book ‘How to Raise a Teen’, I took inspiration from Demeter’s story and named the transition of ‘later parenting’ Demetrescence. The ‘de’ prefix indicating a sort of reversal of matrescence, but with an emphais on Demeter, understanding that this is not the end, but rather a new beginning of a different relationship with your (almost) adult child.
Demetrescence sees mothers having to focus on their own health and physical reminders that they are no longer young, full of energy, and fertile. We must focus on the health of our own parents, considering our own mortality alongside their own. We must consider who we want to be in this next stage of life, when arms that once clung to us so desperately shrug us off without any malice or understanding of how tough that rejection can feel to us at times. Each day we live through ‘the lasts’ of parenting, wondering when we last kissed our child goodnight in bed, read them a bedtime story, bought them a toy as a gift, or carried them in from the car all warm, soft and yet inexplainably heavy after they fell asleep on a long journey. We look yearningly at mothers pushing babies in prams, our ovaries sending out one last “maybe another?” signal before the ticks of mother nature’s clock slow to a stop. We reminisce on the days when our children’s biggest concern was the colour of their sippy cup, instead of the friendship or relationship heartbreak they are currently facing. We feel foolish for ever thinking that parenting would be easier when our children were older, that they would need us less, that we would have more free time. We may have more time free of the physical demands of early parenting, but ‘late parenting’ brings with it a heavy mental load. Not an hour goes past when we are not thinking of our young people, mentally organising and worrying about them.
Demetrescence sees us faced with the dreams of our own adolescence, as we help to steer our young people towards their futures, learning that our dreams are not theirs and that they do not want what we wanted, or indeed what we wanted for them. We are faced with filling time, time that we so desperately wanted a decade or two ago, but that now feels empty. We must reconsider our careers, our life goals, our adult relationships, how we present ourselves to the world and most importantly the relationship with have with ourselves and we must do all of this through hot flushes, sleepless nights and hormone shifts that produce irritation, intolerance and attitude far worse than any our teens exhibit. And nobody is talking about it. I think that should change, don’t you?
‘How to Raise a Teen: A guide for parents and carers of 13 to 21yr olds’ is out on July 4th.
Sarah Ockwell-Smith 
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