This book will stay with me more than any other I’ve ever read. And not just because I am in matrescence but because I have a mother, I know many mothers, and I could have been a much better friend and supporter if I would have been taught this stuff 10 years ago. It felt like a bodily unravelling, directly sensory-(but at the same time drawing out new emotions, or, at least for me-unknown to the maternal world). “I thought mothering would just be changing nappies and cuddling a baby. Instead it took me to the edge of what it means to be human.” In awe of this unique book.

matrescence – the ups and downs of new motherhood How to navigate matrescence – the ups and downs of new motherhood

Matrescence covers socio-economic; historical; political and scientific elements of motherhood- which was insightful and so well interwoven.

Foxes Unearthed | Elliott & Thompson

A sympathetic interviewer and scrupulous journalist…a thorough, well-balanced report - The Spectator

Matrescence by Lucy Jones - Penguin Books New Zealand Matrescence by Lucy Jones - Penguin Books New Zealand

The newest emerging theory,Reproductive Identity,debutedin the June 2020 Special issue of the American Psychologist — Rethinking Adult Development: New Ideas for New Times. Matrescence took me on a journey of reminescence through my own pregnancies and early years of motherhood, eliciting wry recognition, surprise at new evidence and insight, and gratitude for a work that really sees what it is to mother Clare Chambers Jones writes like a novelist, capturing wild swings of emotion, doubt, the adoration of a new baby, and (always) the tension between what she thinks is expected of her and the pressure of her own mixed-up feelings Daily Mail Jones is known primarily as a science and nature writer (her first book was about foxes and her most recent, Losing Eden, looked at the human need for wild spaces) and I’ll confess I sighed slightly when I waded through an opening section about slime mould, though no doubt this will reassure readers of her other work that Matrescence is not a complete departure. Subsequent chapters begin with similar passages, which, Jones writes, attempt to show that natural change is not always beautiful. Initially I felt they jarred with the body of the work, which follows Jones’s journey into motherhood and is divided according to a series of themes, including birth, the brain, sleep and society.If at times there is an uneasy tension in this book between the science, memoir, social commentary and flashes of creative writing, this is a testament to its ambition. Jones never becomes bogged down in the material, which is quite an achievement considering its scope. At times I even wanted more. Jones hints at her “conservative (childhood) home”, and I found myself wondering how our own mothers shape our experience of matrescence. But to go there is to ask a lot of a writer, and I don’t blame her for not doing so. Jones is a pioneer, and as such has left some ground unexplored. This book is a beginning, and a fine one at that.