Why Aren't We Talking About Mothers All The Time?

How is it possible that we prepare women for childbirth, but not for becoming mothers? We tell them what to pack in their hospital bag. How to swaddle a baby. How often to feed. Or how to get the baby to sleep. But almost nobody tells them that they're about to undergo one of the biggest neurological, emotional and psychological transformations of their entire lives.

There's a word for this transformation. It's called matrescence.

To be honest, up until two months ago, I'd never heard the word before. How had I become a mother (twice), gone through everything that comes with it, and never once heard the term that describes exactly what I was experiencing?

Matrescence is the transition into motherhood. The word was coined in the 1970s by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael, yet it has only recently begun entering mainstream conversation. Researchers now compare matrescence to adolescence because, just like adolescence, it marks a profound developmental shift. Except this one happens in adulthood. Science is finally catching up to what mothers have always known. Research shows that pregnancy and early motherhood physically reshape the brain. Hormones surge and settle. Neural pathways reorganise. Emotional processing changes. Priorities shift. Your brain literally adapts to help you care for another human being. Some neuroscientists describe it as one of the greatest periods of neuroplasticity an adult will ever experience.

And yet, most mothers still don't know this. Instead, we tell women they're emotional. Hormonal. Forgetful. We joke about "baby brain," as though it's something to laugh off, instead of recognising that the brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It's fascinating when you think about it.

We prepare women for labour, but don't prepare them for becoming someone entirely new.

That feels like such a massive oversight. Because once you've become a mother, there is no going back to who you were before. There is only the person you're becoming. I don't know a single mother who wasn't changed by motherhood.

Some became softer.

Some became louder.

Some became more anxious.

Some became calmer.

Some lost themselves for a while.

Others found themselves for the very first time.

Most of us experienced all of it.

Motherhood isn't *just* about keeping another human alive. It's the constant negotiation between who you were, who you are now and who you're trying to become. And somehow, we expect women to navigate all of that while returning to work, maintaining marriages and friendships, caring for everyone else, remembering the grocery list, showing up at school concerts, chasing career goals and pretending everything feels... normal.

Girl? Nothing about that is normal.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder why we aren't talking about mothers ALL the time.

Not just on Mother's Day, or just when they're struggling. I mean, all the time.

Mothers are quietly carrying one of the biggest transformations a human being can experience while continuing to build businesses, lead teams, create opportunities, raise families and somehow still show up with a full face beat and a (relatively) clean outfit.

We celebrate babies; and rightly so. They're so chubby and delicious. But somewhere between the baby shower and the first birthday, we stop asking about the Her. A baby is born. A mother is born too. But, why do we only celebrate one of them? Maybe that's why so many women feel like they're losing themselves after having children. Not because they're broken or because they're doing motherhood wrong. But because nobody ever told them they were supposed to change. Nobody told them there was a name for it.

At Primitive, we believe that people build great businesses. Not job titles, not portfolios, not LinkedIn headlines. People. Which is why conversations like this matter. When we understand the humans behind the work, we build better workplaces. Better leaders. Better communities. And perhaps, better futures for the children watching us.

We truly believe that the women raising the next generation deserve to be seen, understood and supported while they become the women they're still learning to be.

Maybe that's why I can't stop thinking about this word. Matrescence. Not because it's new. But because it describes something millions of women have lived through without ever having the language to understand what was happening to them.

And maybe that's where we start. By naming it. By talking about it. By making space for the woman behind the motherhood. Because we cannot keep asking women to raise the next generation while expecting them to quietly disappear in the process.