Transcript:

Hello. Welcome to the Planting Rainbows Parent Coaching podcast. This is the place where moms come to create peace, play, and possibility in their parenting. No matter how old their kids are or how badly they feel about the job they are doing as parents.

At Planting Rainbows Parent Coaching, we help moms discover how to make parenting less hard and more joy-filled, we focus on progress over perfection, showing up again and again. And again. All while doing the best we can. I am so glad you are here.

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Today on the show we are talking about motherhood, mothering, and finding our truth in the deep changes that occur as we become mothers and as we move through the limitless stages of mothering. I’m Kristi with Planting Rainbows Parent Coaching and I’m so excited to get started.

15 years ago today I became a Mama. The moment I saw my first child, my heart filled with an infinite love for this very tiny human being. I would marvel for months at the enormity of my love for her, truly feeling awed that a love so deep, so profound, and so divine could even exist within this world.

And being a mama, was and is hard.

One piece of advice I have heard a bajillion times since having my oldest child is, I think, one of the worst things we tell mamas.

“Don’t blink, they will be grown before you know it.”

I really, really abhor that, often unsolicited, advice.

Thankfully a few years ago I learned that two things can be true at once.

In this case the truth is our babies do grow up fast AND reminding a Mama who is in the thick of raising children that soon they will be grown and gone is almost universally unhelpful. She knows that the days are long and the years are short.

She is living through some very, very, very long days. Being a mom is the hardest job I have ever done. I literally still have nightmares about a job I had for nine years and have not worked at since a few months into the pandemic. And being a Mama (while thankfully not nightmare inducing as yet) is still the hardest job I do everyday, all day.

As Mama’s we are told being a mother is the greatest role we will ever have. And if that is true for you, that is awesome. And if that is not true for you because some other role you have in this life is your greatest role, that is awesome too.

I think, on this, my oldest child’s 15th birthday (the years have flown!) I want to live my life more truthfully. I want to let other Mama’s know if this mothering work is hard for you, that is normal. If motherhood is not turning out the way you expected, that is normal. If you are struggling with how to do it all (because we are told we have to do it all), I want to let you know you can’t do it all. It is not humanly possible AND you don’t have to do it all. It is not only okay, but it is necessary to figure out what you can let go of.

The perfect mother or even the almost perfect mother is a myth. A myth that is rooted in something called the Maternal Mandate. This term coined in 1976 by Dr Nancy Felipe Russo expresses in part that mother’s must love every single moment of mothering and motherhood. Which is pretty ridiculous if you stop to think about it for just fourteen seconds.

Have you heard the term matrescence? It is a theory described for the first time by Dana Raphael, a medical anthropologist in 1973. 50 years ago. It was then buried and lost until 2008 when Dr. Aurelie Athan resurrected this theory that intentionally sounds like adolescence. Dr. Athan said, ““Women who transition through preconception, pregnancy, and birth, surrogacy, or adoption to the postnatal period and beyond experience an acceleration in multiple domains true of any developmental push: bio-psycho-social-cultural-spiritual.”

We have named the transition from puberty to an adult “adolescence” to describe the deep changes that a child moves through on their way to adulthood. We accept that people in this time period of life are moving through massive changes affecting every aspect of their identity and life.

Did you know before the theory of adolescence was created, it was thought that those years of transition were merely children going mad on the way to adulthood.

Having words, having theory is critical to understanding our world and ourselves. Bell Hooks said, “Within theory we can find healing.”

And so Matrescence. The time of transition from the moment a person decides or knows they will become a mom. This transition involves every part of our identity: physically or biologically, psychologically, socially, culturally, spiritually. And this transition continues, it is evergreen because as our motherhood looks different in pregnancy than it does in the newborn stage and even more different in the toddler years as it does in the school age, tween, and teen years and then mothering adult children.

And so our matrescence is ever present, ever changing and growing. And we need support for this transition that is always ongoing. Sometimes it looks and feels so easy, but many times it feels isolating, lonely, and hard. As we move through our changing identities, changing bodies, new beliefs about ourselves, new roles at home, at work, in our community, we need to know this is not happening to us in isolation, but all moms move within matrescence. We are all undergoing constant and deep transitions from the moment we know we will become a mom.

What if as moms we started empowering each other to openly share our joys and our struggles in this journey? What if as mothers we started talking about our matrescence as easily as we talk about potty training or preschool options? What if we allowed each other to see our whole selves so we could support each other in our matrescence and so not a single one of us would ever feel broken or not enough or less than. Because if we make it our habit to talk about the changes we experience in motherhood throughout the entire time of our motherhood, then none of us will be alone anymore.

I know a young mom who is in the thick of the toddler years and one of my favorite things about her is that she is honest about motherhood. She knows she does not have to do this alone. She is embracing her power and her strength by curating a village of fellow mamas for support. And she is showing each woman in her village, we do not have to have all of this figured out. We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to show up in our imperfections, our constantly transitioning selves, and in our love for our children.

I invite you to name your truth today, whatever it is. Maybe it is not that mothering and motherhood is the hardest job you have ever done.

Maybe, like me, it is.

When you name your truth, I invite you to own it. It is not ugly or wrong or shameful.

Today I am owning that while I love my children with more love than I knew existed, it is still hard to be a mom.

I think two things can be true, I love that I get to be Mama to these beautiful souls AND it is really hard.

What is your truth?

Is there an AND in it?

Whatever it is, I want you to know deeply and completely you are not alone and you are doing your best. And the Mama who is doing her best, is enough.

Thanks for joining me today.

If you want personalized one-to-one coaching where you will be seen, heard, believed, and you will be able to transform your parenting for more peace, more joy, and more connection with your children visit

PlantingRainbows.com where you can schedule a free 20 minute call with me, Kristi. This call is free and low stress, you get to share your struggles and I will listen. Then we will see if we would be a good fit to work together.

It may be the best 20 minutes of your week and the start of one of the best parenting decisions you ever make.

Thank you for tuning in to the Planting Rainbows Parent Coaching podcast. The place where mamas find their peace, play. and possibility in their parenting.

I love you all.

You are enough.