and I think that new motherhood is often classified as the addition of things, right? There's a new baby. You've got a new identity. And of course like all of those things are are true. But there's also the loss of loads of things. Like your identity changes basically overnight. You went from being a pretty independent person usually to, you know, not being

Yeah, like not being able to go to the toilet without sort of, you know, some logistical planning going on.

Hi, it's a pleasure to be here. It's nice and calm in the studio which is a bit of a different environment to what I left this morning which was a lot of screaming children so it's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah. So matrescence, it's actually a really simple explanation for what it is. It's just the process of becoming a mother. And it's nice that there's a word for it to be honest because if you think about it in the same way as adolescence, so adolescence is the process of becoming an adult. And of course you become an adult on one day, whatever day you legally become an adult in the country that you're in, whether that's your 18th birthday, your 21st, of course in some ways there's a day that you become an adult. But in many other ways of course we understand that it's a process. You don't wake up on your 18th birthday a totally different person. It's being a bit of a process. It's exactly the same with motherhood of course in one extremely real way you become a mother on the day that your first child is born. But in another way it's an identity and it takes a while to step into. And so I think this idea that if you don't have it all figured out on day one, that's okay. And that's a very normal experience that people have. I guess my background is in occupational psychology, business psychology, coaching and then I think talent development and then I think becoming a mother made me realize like wow, that is a that is a big life change and that is where all of the things that you learn about in a psychology degree really kind of come to the front and you think this is a big identity shift. This is something that it's really pressing.

Good question. Yeah, good question. I mean, so my kids are one and two, so I kind of think gosh, I feel like my identity as a mother changes daily possibly. But I would say it's an ongoing process because your children are growing, you're growing, like that relationship changes, right? And so if it's the process of becoming a mother that in and of itself is a changing identity, right? So I think I think it can be as ongoing as you wanted to be. That would be that would be my answer.

Yes. I mean definitely. I think the kind of the happiness piece, you know, I have a child I should be happy, I think there's so much to dig into on that. I mean I think firstly with new motherhood, when you are when you first become a parent, almost none of the factors that you have there is a recipe for happiness. You're incredibly hormonal, you're incredibly sleep deprived, you're probably quite isolated. I mean these are kind of some of the things that actually make that emotion of happiness kind of more more difficult to find perhaps. I think the other thing is it's important to remember like happiness is an emotion, right? So it's not something that we can necessarily hold on to and always have. And I think sometimes we have this idea of if we have children that will be us happy. And of course it's such a source of joy. And it my children are such a source of joy in my life, of course. You know, I love them like I've never loved anyone before. However, it's a lot to expect that I will just be happy forever now. Like that's kind of an unreasonable sort of expectation. And I think the other thing as well is things change all of the time. I think there's not necessarily the the input that you put into your children. It's not an easy output as well, right? So if you if you think I know we were talking before about like high achieving women. Often we are at school, we chase A's or like at work we're getting great performance reviews. That's not a thing when you have children. No one's giving you an A. There's no way to work out whether or not you're actually achieving. And so if that's something that's kind of important, that's a thing to sort of consider and think about, okay, so what where is this like success I guess coming from? What does success look like now? Because it's going to be different when you're raising children. And you can do everything in inverted commas right.

And actually you can still might not sleep. Your kids still might not eat their vegetables. Your kids still might, you know, not um

Exactly. Yeah. And so I think it's a there's so much going on and I think that if we're not feeling happy all of the time, I think that's just such a normal normal experience.

Gosh, I mean there's so much in what you were just saying even in that run up to that question. There's like guilt, there's shoulding, there's perfectionism, and then loneliness. Like loneliness is huge. It's a huge, huge topic. There's lots of different studies looking into loneliness in sort of the postpartum experience. And there's lots of different ones and honestly the statistics for who reports feeling lonely or what percentage reports feeling lonely is a huge range, but from what I take from the data is either a big chunk of women to basically all women feel lonely or experience some form of loneliness after having a baby. And quite a huge percentage of people spend just quite a lot of time alone except for their baby when they've when they've had their child. To kind of go to your point of you having your child young. I think about my friends who had children young all of the time. And I actually think it's strange because I was reflecting on this knowing that I was going to come on and talk to you. I think that my friends who had children young, I almost saw them quite a lot still. Say some of my friends who had children in their late teens, early 20s, I probably did still see them on nights out, on weekends away. Um, maybe we would go, I would go to their house because it's obviously easier for the person without a child to travel. And possibly the examples I can think of like their parents were around to support them and help them, which is obviously a fantastic source of support if you if you have that.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that they were they were able to do those things because they had support, but they were able to to go and see these people. So I didn't necessarily feel like when my when my friends who had children young, I didn't necessarily feel like I was seeing them less. But now when I think about what we spoke about, like I didn't have the conversational toolkit to talk to them about how they were feeling. Now I'm on the other side of it and I always say this is the thing that I felt so strongly when I first had my first son and I was still in the hospital. I was thinking, how have people been doing this this whole time? Like I can't believe that my friends, my colleagues, like my parents, like my friends' parents, like I can't believe that they just were all doing this and I had no idea. So I think the difficulty with um you know if you have your children before other people, maybe you see them more, that was my experience, maybe they didn't feel the same, but maybe you see them the same amount but you they don't have the ability to talk about it. And like they they're probably thinking I was up six times with the baby and I'm just there talking about, you know, my latest night out. Exactly. It's just a totally different. And now I think I'm in my mid, mid to late 30s, a lot of my friends have children, I'd say probably the majority do, not all but a lot of them do. And so probably we do have that shared experience so that when we do meet up we can empathize a lot more and we can understand and there is that shared experience that is really helpful. However, it's difficult to see each other because we have work schedules, we have nap schedules, we live in different countries, we live in different parts of the country. And so I think that

Totally. Yeah. So I obviously live in Dubai, a lot of my friends are back home. Even when I stay in London and my friends are in London, often I'm staying in one part of the city, they're in a totally different part. We either have to meet in the middle of the city and you know try and find a cafe that won't mind some screaming children. Or one of us has to travel for 45 minutes by which time they'll need a nap, they'll need changing, they'll need a feed. And so logistically it is a bit of a nightmare. But I think the other thing like loneliness is obviously not a particularly pleasant emotion in and of itself because you can feel isolated, you can feel like you don't have people to talk to, but it also can breed to things like shame and that guilt can maybe turn into shame. And I think that's the other thing about loneliness. Like yes, of course, it's not very nice to feel like I'm by myself with this. But then actually if you're having all of those other difficult thoughts and feelings that are really common in new motherhood if you're not talking to other people about that, that can lead to it being more of a problem because you don't realize that other people are experiencing those things as well.

Yes.

Yeah, totally. Totally. I think that there's a huge part in that for sure. And I think that new motherhood is often classified as the addition of things, right? There's a new baby. You've got a new identity. And of course like all of those things are are true. But there's also the loss of loads of things. Like your identity changes basically overnight. You went from being a pretty independent person usually to, you know, not being

Yeah, like not being able to go to the toilet without sort of, you know, some logistical planning going on. And so I think it's again like just a I think it's a really common experience and one that if we don't talk about it people realize don't realize that they are not alone with stuff like that. Even like a silly example, like when I was newly postpartum with my first, I felt very bonded, very attached, every time I like closed my eyes I could basically like see his face. I think there was a lot of like anxiety in that, but like I felt very full of love I guess. You know, definitely very full of love. But also I was so aware that my mind was almost like trying to make a decision. It was kind of thinking, babies, like good decision or bad decision? Like I honestly remember thinking just like so here are all the pros, like I really love him, he's really cute, like looking at his little squishy face. Like cons, like yeah I feel like I'm not myself anymore, I feel like I I'll never sleep again, I feel like I'm only thinking about him and that's the only thing I can think about. And honestly the baby was here. This was not a decision I was making pre-children. My baby was very much here. And yet my brain was still trying to think like is this is this is this a good decision? I'm not sure. And it took a while I

Yeah. But I think it takes a while for you to catch up. And I think that's why matrescence is such a nice term because you can realize that it's a stepping into it. Like I don't think about that decision anymore. It is this time and like I said before it I think it can go on as long as you know for the rest of your life probably. But I think at that start it's very intense and sort of like the way that you think about your children, the way that you feel about yourself I think that they changed so much particularly in that first year and particularly with your first. I think that yeah it's a huge thing.

Yeah, I mean it affects all relationships, right? And the the the relationship that you're having with the person who's also raising that child with you is obviously going to be massively impacted as well. I think that both of you are going through probably the biggest change you've ever been through. The person who's given birth is also battling with all these hormonal changes, often sleeping less. I mean my husband was very open to the idea of getting up and feeding the baby in the night, but I was breastfeeding so it always felt a bit pointless. What are you doing here? Like you're not really you're not really needed or he'd feed a bottle but I'd have to pump anyway. So there's there are some kind of differences or difficulties I think that there's it's not necessarily this kind of level playing field kind of to start with. But I think the other thing that is really interesting if you kind of link matrescence and having a new baby with work as well. So when I've spoken to lots of women in the course of what I do, often the first two weeks, so in the UK certainly it's they're very generous two week paternity leave. Often men do take longer but that's using up their holiday and things like that. So those first two weeks is like all hands on deck, everyone figuring everything out. How does this thing work? What makes it stop crying? What does it, you know, how do we feed it? Kind of feels quite egalitarian, quite shared, like notwithstanding the things I mentioned earlier. But then once the non-birthing partner goes back to work, you're at home with the baby, feeling lonely, feeling where is my old self, feeling you know like not like you understand everything.

100%. 100%. Like they can just go back to work and their old life and I'm stuck here with this little screaming thing, right?

But I and I think it's sort of this both and is a term that's like used a lot and I think there's not necessarily loads of women that I speak to who are like I wish I'd gone back to work at two weeks. However, there is an element of you've gone back to your old life. Like you've gone back to speaking about things that aren't around nap schedules or feeding amounts and things like that. And I think that there absolutely can be an element of jealousy in that. But for the person who's gone back to work, they might be thinking it's heartbreaking for me to leave my baby in the morning and I don't want to be talking about this thing that you know we've been talking about for the last year at work. So I think there can be an element of both people feeling like they've got the raw end of the deal sometimes. And I think it's just taking a step back and thinking okay like how can we be on the same side here, which is absolutely easier said than done. But kind of thinking about yeah it is a difference. And the other thing about the person staying at home with the baby is the the baby changes. Like what what got them to sleep at two weeks probably isn't going to get them to sleep at six weeks. And so that's what I remember speaking to lots of people about in those early stages. Like you figured it all out, then you basically have to kind of go at it alone because you're figuring out this baby by yourself. And then at the weekends or in the evenings when your partner's there, they're like, no, no, no, you're doing it wrong. Like that's not what works anymore. And you just kind of think actually that's that's challenging, right? On top of everything else.

Yeah, I mean I think it's a good idea. I think that there's I think absolutely I think talking is always a good idea, right? Like not letting things fester, not letting things build up. I think absolutely kind of understanding some work on like values and how you want to be both in your relationship and as parent. I think that can be really interesting to do before the baby. I think there's an element of you don't know what you're about to step into as well. And so with all the best intentions things are sometimes going to be unexpected. And I think there's a difference between cognitively understanding that this is going to be a challenging time and then being in the challenging time can be two quite different experiences. I I mean I do think talking about it again it's about the understanding that things change as well is a really healthy perspective. I think understanding that how you feel when your baby is 2 months is not how you're going to be feeling when your baby is 22 months or 22 years. Like it does it changes and kind of not I use this with sleep with friends this sort of phrase which is don't despair, don't get smug. When it's when it's with sleep is you you have a you have a terrible night you're like oh no this is the worst thing ever I'm never going to be able to sleep again. And then you have a night where maybe they sleep sort of eight hours and you think I've sorted it, everything's going to be fine, and then the next night you know they're awake an hour after go yeah. And so I think just that I guess the core of that sort of thought is that things do change and that things don't remain the same even in that first year. And so I think absolutely talking about it, not letting it fester, not letting it...

Totally. Yeah. Because I think that's the that's the hardest part, you know, when you're at an everyone's sleep deprived and, you know, then this these feelings as you said fester and then you have like a nervous breakdown or you start screaming at your partner because it's just too much at some point. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean it's 100% understandable. I think like everyone I speak to argues more with their partner after they had a baby and if they don't like I would like to understand like how they do it. It's a challenge for relationships, right? Absolutely. But I also think like the same rules apply as ever, right? You're probably not going to change your behavior because someone's screaming at you to do it. It it can be a really useful like starting point to be like oh okay something is wrong here or like something needs to be addressed but then maybe the solution comes when everybody's nervous system is a little bit more calm.

I'm not a mental health practitioner, but there are categories that people can look to to understand whether or not what they're experiencing is maybe more than is kind of typical. For example things like postnatal depression, my understanding is it's a feeling of feeling low for more than two weeks and it can happen anywhere up until the first year after having a baby. Some people actually find the beginning okay and then maybe month six it it becomes a lot more difficult and they feel a lot lower. Um, generally sort of the first two weeks if you're feeling really low, that is seen as a normal part of the wonderful topsy-turvy birthing kind of new mum experience and I didn't have postnatal depression um with either of my children. But certainly with my first I felt low. And I felt low before, I'm a human, you know, we all feel low. This was something else. And I think sometimes just feeling those understanding that sometimes there's nothing that you can do. Like if if you're in that kind of hormonal pit and it is within those kind of first two weeks unfortunately like it or fortunately that you just have to have to wait a lot of the time. And I think sometimes we can be really want a solution. I remember actually my I was very very sad I think it was weird it was like day five I was like crying day six I was totally fine day seven I was like sobbing all day again day eight I was totally fine it was very much like a rollercoaster...

But my husband really wanted to like solve the problem and I remember he like went and bought me a water bottle. He'd go and on errands all the time. And he'd come back and be like I've bought you this water bottle. It means that you don't have to like reach for a glass if you're feeding the baby and like you can open it with one hand. And I was like this is like a lovely gift. This is like so thoughtful. I love it. I still use it. This is amazing. I'm still crying. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean men I think feel helpless at this point also right? They want to help but there's not, as you said there's no solution, you just have to go through it and yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then of course if it carries on for over that two-week period and you still think you know I'm feeling very low, I'm feeling like this is really I can't get myself out of this. I think it's always a good idea to speak to somebody who can help professionally. Obviously it changes where you are in the world but a good start is always going to your GP and they can point you in the right direction. But I also think like you know engaging in something like therapy is a thing that you can do even if you don't meet a clinical threshold. If you can afford it and if you have the time to do it and if you have the mental head space I think being able to access therapy even if you don't necessarily have postnatal anxiety or postnatal depression I think that can be a really beneficial thing to be able to do to help you because it's such a huge change.

Oof, I mean I think it very much depends on the individual, right? But for sure it can be a challenging time. And I think it can be a challenging time whether you get two weeks off which is the case especially in the US a lot of the time... or you get a full year or even longer in some countries with really generous maternity leave. I think there's so many things that go into it. Absolutely there's the leaving of a child that you've built up this really strong bond with and you have this really strong bond with that that is challenging for many for many women. There's also guilt. You feel guilty about not being there for your kids when you're at work, but then also you feel guilty for not working when you're with your children. Um, I think there can be a loss of confidence because perhaps you've been away from the workplace for a certain amount of time. You're not necessarily feeling like you're your best self. This idea of mom brain isn't really held up in the data by the way, but I think a lot of people think that they're not going to be on top of their game and they think other people will think that as well. So there's often sometimes it is the environment. Like I definitely speak to women who have been treated poorly when they've gone back to work, but sometimes it is what we think other people are thinking about us. So I think there's there's a lot there's a lot that goes into it.

That can be the case for for women. Yeah, for sure. I think that it is interesting and I think it would be different for for all women. Like for sure like I think there's another factor. Like you know lots of women I speak to are still incredibly ambitious and still have the same career desires and wants that they had before. However, they also want to be a present parent. And so that comes with challenges. Other women want to step back and you know step maybe step away from their career for a little bit to be fully with their children. And lots of women are kind of in the middle. And I think I speak to very few women who aren't ambitious at all. It's just definitions of success can change because you've got this other huge element in your life now. And so I think that's a really worthwhile thing doing just understanding and taking a minute to think about like what does success actually mean to me now. What are my values when I think about being a working parent? And that means that your if you understand what it is that you want and what it is that you can hope for, then I think that is the first step to then being able to set better boundaries or to be able to understand that you might be having some difficult thoughts and feelings with regards to this, but you know that this is what you want to be doing, you want to be going towards um this particular point.

It's not that let's let's say the person the person who has the higher mental load says to the person with the lower mental load I want you to cook tonight. It's not just about getting the source pans out. It's also about thinking around what do we have in the cupboards? Like what did we eat yesterday? What did what's nutritionally varied? Um what's tasty, how long will it take? So it's not just about part of the job, it's like the whole job. And again I think it's when you're figuring out what this life looks like with your family and that involves like work and childcare and everything just figuring out who's responsible for what can be quite a interesting...

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yes, that's a word. It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a word. And there's big changes for men as well. I think that I think that I'm always really wary that I don't want it to seem like it's mums versus dads or women versus men. I was like everybody's got to team effort right. Exactly. And like everyone's going through this like huge change. And I think that like talking about it, understanding like what you value as a collective and like what your setup looks like I think is the most important thing. And to understand that like everyone's finding this challenging. Like everyone what whatever your setup, there are some things that are really working in your favor and there are some things that are going to be more challenging. Yeah.

Hmm. It's a really it's a hard question. It is a really hard question. It's kind of a a delicate question as well because it's sort of thinking it's I remember one of my friends who had a child early speaking to me and saying I'm not being patronizing when I'm saying that you can't understand. You just can't understand. And like it's just because you've not been through this experience. It's nothing about like you, it's nothing about how empathetic you are or not. It is just that it is a really unique thing I guess to go through. Even though so many people kind of do go through it. I was actually speaking to someone end of last week who described it as almost like seeing a new color. And you can try to describe it to other people as much as you can, but there's always going to be an element of like until you can see it, you can't really understand. Which I thought was quite nice. Yeah, quite a nice analogy because it's not really like there's there's nobody nobody's at fault here. Like there's nobody's better than somebody else. It's just an experience that you know it's really hard. And I think I had my children around the same time as lots of my friends were having children and so coming up to it I think you know something's going to be big. But until you do it you can't really you can't really understand. So I think I think just knowing that there's just so much that you can't understand until you've gone through it but that that's okay like there is it is just a huge change. I mean that's enough to kind of know.

Yeah. I mean there's certainly an argument for more flexible work in general. I think that everybody benefits from more flexible work, right? And also although like yes I'm sure that that is the case in lots of instances, I know lots of parents that I speak to feel guilty when they leave to pick up the kid from nursery or they feel like it's a really awkward conversation to say oh please can I go and see my kid in this play. And they feel like it's impacting their career in some way as well to have those conversations. I will say that so I worked in talent development for many years and talent development is obviously all about trying to improve performance. And so understandably we focus on transitions within the workplace. So often talent development focuses on when you become a new manager or when you become a new leader or when you change career. And I think for me now having had children, I just think how is it not on our road map more support for working parents? Because if you think about all the big transitions in your life, like having that kid is huge and so I actually think that's somewhere that talent development needs to move to a lot more strongly. How can we support people in what they're going through? Whatever that is. Children isn't the only one, but it's one that a lot of your employees will be going through at some point. And I think actually thinking about how you can best support them there is really important because you know there's a meeting with HR and maybe there's a working group that thinks about parents. But actually like it's huge, like there should be more support to understand how do you fit all this work that you were doing previously into this new life that you've got. Um and I do think that that is an area that workplaces will need to get better.

I mean, I think anything that helps you to understand what is going on is beneficial. I've talked about it already, but I do think values is a really important thing to do. I think when everything's up in the air and your thoughts and feelings are like wow what's going on, I think like having values as a grounding practice can be really really helpful. The other thing that I've been reading about lately is this idea of how is it that you can almost like step fully into whatever role you're about to take on. So I mean that in terms of like transitioning. So when you are if you're a working parent, when you're moving from like being around your kids to going into the workplace and then back again. How do you transition well? How can you almost and and by the way this is something that you can do when you have children or when you don't have children. Like how do you transition from kind of like one role to the other well. Because if you are in the playground with your kids but you're constantly thinking about the presentation that you're making tomorrow and like adding slides or or getting pinged on slack and like responding. Have you transitioned well? And also if you're at work and you're kind of thinking oh like oh gosh like I feel bad like what are they doing and blah blah blah. And there's this idea actually that if you use very different skills in your work and your home life, that can actually help to replenish the other. So when for example if you think if you had a really tough weekend with the kids and you were like they were around the whole time. They're kind of driving you a bit mad. You're a bit exhausted by the end of it. You're probably going into work like... I always joked that I'm going to the office for a like a it's like a spa day for me.

You can be like, okay, let me relax. I can actually have a coffee, like I could go to the toilet without checking that that's okay. And have an adult conversation.

So I think there so you you'll go in feeling replenished for the work that maybe you were feeling a bit tired about on on Friday. And then maybe by the end of the day, you're actually you're missing your kids and you want to get back to them and you want to see them. And the same with work, if it's been a really stressful time actually if you can fully detach and like go to that playground and like you know get involved in the game that they're playing with, then you can go back to the workplace probably feeling a bit refreshed as well. And I was reading that in the context of guilt because actually the idea is like with guilt we're always thinking about what we're not doing. So we're thinking about okay we're not doing the thing that we are doing. And actually that doesn't allow us to be totally immersed in the thing. So if we can kind of almost tell our minds, thank you, thanks for like checking in and making sure that I know that I have these two elements in my life that I really value and I want to show up and do well in. But actually if I if you can let me concentrate on work fully for the for the next few hours, I'll actually be going back a more refreshed parent. And vice versa as well. Like if you can if I can just make sure that I'm really focusing on my children right now and not being dragged away. Being present, exactly. And by the way, that's so much easier said than done. It's not about judging when you can't do that. It's just understanding that actually there's benefits in doing that that will maybe help.

Do you know, there's there's obviously a load of things but I would say one is I just don't think that you can tell new moms that you're doing a good job enough. Like I think just hearing you're doing a good job, of course there's issues with external validation, you have to feel like you're doing a good job yourself and not look to other people. But I think in those first few weeks and months where you really don't know what you're doing, the world's upside down, what is happening. I think just someone who's often who's been there before or just anyone who's like watching you with your baby saying you're doing amazingly.

I think so. I think that's okay. And I think just looking for that and when someone told me that it did make me feel like, oh, like am I? But thank you. Like I think you can slowly slowly kind of start to believe it.

Totally. Yeah. So I think that's something you can tell new moms. And also honestly I know not everybody thinks this but I do think it gets easier. I'm only, my kids are one and two. Let me say I have not got it all figured out, but for me personally okay maybe easier is the wrong word, but I do think it gets different, right? It never gets easy, but it gets different.

Yeah, I think so. And people say, oh no it doesn't you know it doesn't matter like I think I now no longer wake up six times a night. I now no longer need to feed my baby with my body so I can't be away from him for like more than well initially 45 minutes right. And so I think that you do start to step into that identity. I think don't worry if you don't have it all figured out on day one. Don't worry if you don't feel like you're 100% enjoying every second. That's let me say, isn't it? Enjoy every minute. No.

100%. It's a new relationship. Yeah, and it's a different relationship to anyone that you've ever had before. Like absolutely you know it's a it's a very a relationship that comes with a lot of responsibility. But absolutely you're you're getting to know each other.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah.