Why Matrescence Needs More Than Empathy

The identity shift of becoming a mother is seismic and dangerously under-supported

You Are Not the Same Person After Motherhood

There's a word for the process of a woman becoming a mother, shedding her old skin to become another version of self. The profound physical, psychological, and neurological transformation a person undergoes when crossing the threshold into motherhood is termed “matrescence”.  Coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael and later expanded by reproductive psychiatrist Alexandra Sacks, the term draws a deliberate parallel to adolescence, another seismic, hormone-driven, identity-reshaping passage that our culture actually names and prepares for.

Matrescence gets neither the visibility nor the preparation that is required in a more fundamental way and I’m not talking about maternal leave policies.

When I became a mother for the first time after moving to Singapore, with little knowledge or preparation for what was to come, I remember sitting in the hospital room surrounded by bright wallpaper, congratulatory balloons and a sense of doom. Winging everything without a support system, from dealing with infant colic, projectile vomits to navigating the lack of sleep, it took more than three years for me to start to feel like “myself” again.

By then, the definition or the idea of who I was had shifted greatly and yet there was no real awareness or the right language in my head to feel grounded about my life phase.  I looked around me and witnessed examples of women doing it all with ease- and most working full time and managing preschool schedules. I on the other hand felt myself in a constant state of flux that came from choosing to be a full time mother to look after my child. I kept punishing my choice as the “easy way out”. I completely ignored self-compassion in favour of a critical internal dialogue  while constantly berating myself for not feeling more grateful about so many things that were going right (a gorgeous cherubic healthy and happy child being one of them).

Looking back now, I wish I had someone who was on my side, helping me through the chaos that became a familiar background noise and burden that I lugged around for many years after.

Like adolescence, becoming a mother is not a single milestone but a complete reorganisation of the self, the body, the brain, the confusion of the shift in identity:  “who am I now?”.

Hormones surge, neurological architecture shifts, and the woman's relationship to her own body changes rapidly and irrevocably. Pregnancy alone alters her self-concept in ways that researchers have documented for decades. And yet, most women enter this passage equipped with a birth plan and a nappy bag not a psychological map.

Asian Culture Compounds The Problem

In the eastern cultural context, pregnant and postpartum women often navigate a collision between modern life and traditional expectation. They absorb public advice they didn't ask for, and perform a version of motherhood shaped by their family's values rather than their own.

Two competing identities jostle for space: the self they were, and the self they are now expected to become. This internal negotiation, between woman-as-I and woman-as-mother, is neither simple nor short.

What makes it harder is that cultures are not static. Many societies in South East Asia are  mid-transformation: modern ideas about women's roles and healthcare coexist, with traditional beliefs. Women in this in-between space carry an additional layer of conflict and stress on top of the baseline upheaval that every new mother already bears.

One of the clearest examples of this tension in Asian societies is the pull between two very different expectations.

On one side sits the age-old ideal of the "Good Wife, Wise Mother": the belief that a woman's highest purpose is to be the family's primary caregiver, putting her children and husband before herself.

On the other side sits the modern reality of women who want careers, personal goals, and an equal share in decision-making.

For many Asian mothers today, these two worlds collide daily and this tension plays out in two visible ways:

1.      The Double Burden at Home

Even in households where both partners work full-time, research shows that mothers still carry the lion's share of unpaid work: cooking, cleaning, caregiving, and looking after elderly parents (Ng, 2016; Yellow Chair Collective, n.d.).

The expectation that a good mother keeps an immaculate home and is endlessly available does not disappear when she clocks into a job. If anything, it multiplies. Many working mothers describe a persistent, exhausting guilt whenever domestic duties feel less than perfect, not because they personally set that standard, but because the culture around them still does (Channel News Asia, 2021).

2.      The Pressure to Raise the "Perfect" Child Modern mothers increasingly want to raise emotionally secure, confident children, parenting with warmth and respecting their child's individual pace.

But traditional values, particularly the concept of filial piety (the deep Confucian obligation of children to honour and achieve for their families), push in a different direction: toward high academic performance, structured achievement, and raising children who carry the family name well (Wiley, 2022; Every Child, n.d.; Ipsos, 2019; PsychCentral, n.d.; PMC, 2025). The result is a mother caught between two instincts: following her child's lead, or following culture's script.

"Being Reborn" Is Not Poetic

Empathy from friends and colleagues means a great deal- especially in these times when we exist in small nuclear family set-ups. But empathy  without structure leave  women stranded where they need consistent support.

The postpartum period is where matrescence takes root with long lasting effects of identity loss if left unaddressed. Research on Taiwanese mothers found that the first month postpartum produced the highest scores on depression indices, directly affecting the mother-child relationship and the woman's capacity to adapt to her new role.

The emotional landscape is brutal: anxiety, labile emotions, breastfeeding difficulties, sleep deprivation, and the invisible weight of cultural expectation.

What emerged from qualitative research on postnatally depressed mothers was a stark four-stage process of identity loss and reconstruction:

1.      Shattered role identity - the old self no longer fits

2.      Feeling trapped and breaking down - the new self feels impossible

3.      Struggling for self-integrity - a painful, disorienting middle ground

4.      Regaining vitality - emergence of a reconstructed self

Researchers described this as being "reborn" - an internal process of painful growth where the woman must simultaneously grieve who she was and build who she is becoming. In Asian cultural framing, the "martyrdom of motherhood" sits underneath all of this: the unconscious ideal of a good mother who sacrifices herself for her children and family. This ideal doesn't just raise the bar, it makes the inevitable losses of matrescence feel like personal failure.

When mothers cannot meet the role they've internalised, the emotional fallout is predictable: self-blame, anxiety, anger, and depression.

In societies where a woman's self-realisation is culturally tied to being a good mother, these reactions are not just personal, they are structurally produced.

Women Need Scaffolding, Not Just Solidarity

The transition to motherhood is, by definition, one of the most dramatic shifts in self-identity any person will undergo. It does not occur in a vacuum. Culture, interpersonal relationships, and the social context in which a woman lives all actively shape how the transition unfolds whether it becomes a passage toward growth or a collapse into crisis. That means the response must be equally multidimensional.

A landmark 2025 pilot study from Teachers College, Columbia University evaluated a six-week matrescence-informed education programme for new mothers.

The results were striking: participants showed significant improvements in self-compassion, mindfulness, and post-traumatic growth including greater personal strength, deeper relationships, and a clearer sense of self.

This was psychoeducation: simply giving mothers a framework and language for what they were already experiencing. The phrase "it takes a village" has become a cliché. But the research behind it is real and specific.

Studies on postpartum social support consistently show that isolation is not just uncomfortable for new mothers, it is a direct risk factor for postnatal depression. Conversely, feeling genuinely seen by other mothers who share the same experience is protective. The key word is shared identity: the sense that "you are going through what I am going through" creates psychological safety and reduces shame

This means community-level support needs to be intentionally designed, not left to chance:

• Peer mother groups: in polyclinics, community centres, and workplaces that normalise the identity shifts of matrescence, not just the practicalities of infant caremothership

  
  

• Trained community health workers and counsellors who understand matrescence as a developmental passage, capable of providing early, non-clinical support before referral is necessary.

  
  

• Online communities that are moderated and purposeful, given that many mothers, particularly in urban Singapore, find in-person attendance logistically impossible

  
  

• Parenting guidance that normalises the learning curve, rather than assuming instinct fills the gap

  
  

• Individual counselling that works specifically with identity reconstruction, not just symptom management

  
  

• Culturally sensitive care models that neither dismiss traditional practice nor weaponize it as obligation

Please Seek Help

In Singapore, KKH's Women's Mental Wellness Service and the Family Nexus Programme represent genuine progress in this direction. The integration of postnatal depression screening into well-child vaccination visits at polyclinics is a particularly smart model.

It catches mothers at a touchpoint they actually attend. But clinical screening is still not the same as developmental support. A mother can pass a depression screen and still be in the midst of a profound, unacknowledged identity crisis.

At work, the return from maternity leave is one of the most psychologically precarious moments of matrescence and most organisations treat it as purely administrative.

Research shows that 71% of working mothers consider flexible work arrangements critical to their mental health. Yet many return to unchanged roles, unchanged expectations, and no acknowledgment that they are a fundamentally different person than the one who left.

For counsellors working with mothers, the therapeutic stance matters. Reflective listening is foundational but it is the beginning, not the end. Mothers in matrescence need a practitioner who understands that what looks like depression may be an identity in transition; that what looks like failure may be a woman actively negotiating who she is becoming.

The goal is not to restore the woman to who she was before. That woman is gone and grieving her is part of the work.

The goal is to support the emergence of a self that integrates the past, the present, and the immense weight of what she has just survived.

Matrescence is a real developmental shift, not a medical disorder. It’s  a profound transformation, not something you can just snap out of. Our ecological system of family, friends, communities, employers, doctors and the national policies implicitly demand that a mother bounce back through willpower simply because that’s what women have always done.

The common factor across all three levels: education, community, and structure, is the same: matrescence must be named, legitimised, and resourced.

Let’s not treat this phase  as a temporary inconvenience that resolves itself once the mother finds her footing.

Mothers who miraculously seem to quickly find their footing after childbirth are not the ones who were strongest. They are often the ones who were best supported and had the language to understand what was happening to them.

Please get in touch with your mental health provider if you need support and care during /before or after your motherhood journey.

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