Nothing in life prepares individuals to give birth and to take care of a child. It is an all-consuming experience and a rite of passage celebrated as such in different cultures. However, in Western countries and increasingly in others, there is little or no acknowledgement of this experience; it appears to be taken for granted.
For Lucy Jones, this neglect is downright horrific since this period marks ‘a transition that involves of a whole spectrum of emotional and existential ruptures’ as she writes in her book, Matresence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood. This book, long-listed for the Women’s Prize for non-fiction, was released in 2023, and I stumbled upon it perchance, during my weekly binges of book reviews on The Guardian.
The title resonated with me for I had discovered the word, ‘matresence’ one year after the birth of my child. This word is still underlined as an error on the word processor software thereby bringing point home forcefully that even language that provides meaning to daily interactions holds little regard for such a life-altering experience. This is also something that Jones points vehemently in her introductory chapter.
In a similar way to adolescence, with the shifting hormones marked by a drastic change in identity, matresence is also characterised by permanent shifts physiologically, physically, and emotionally. As Jones writes in the book, ‘Science tells us that the neurobiological process of parent-infant bonding and the shift into new motherhood is more diverse and interesting and wild than the bland fantasies on Mother’s Day cards.’ Through the use of various frameworks borrowed from natural sciences as well as the social sciences, Jones describes how the physical body and emotional processes experienced during pregnancy and beyond shift how individuals view the world.
Organised into 13 chapters that all begin with some story from our natural habitat along with a beautiful selection of quotes and poetry from famous writers, the book chronicles the experiences of a woman as she moves through the journey of giving birth to and raising three children. The book lays bare the truth of pregnancy and motherhood, things that doctors are either afraid to inform prospective mothers or simply do not have the time to do so, things that the patriarchal structure of our societies would have believe about the ‘innateness’ of mothering, about how natural it is. In many ways, it allows women to find out more information in one place than they would have been ever be able to get.
It also powerfully brings to front the inadequacy of childcare systems that exist in many industrialised countries although Jones comments primarily about the United Kingdom. She argues, citing different studies that raising children was always supposed to be a communal experience, and never something that was to be done by a mother alone. This, she attributes, as others have done, to capitalism and neo-liberalism that takes advantage of the unpaid reproductive labour of woman. It made me think about how even in Eastern cultures, with increased globalisation, and hyper-capitalism, there is breakdown in communal living, the effects of which are being felt.
There are vivid descriptions of how ugly motherhood can get, about how there are instincts that may force you to hurt your child, but how wonderfully happy you can get when your child simply smiles at you. In essence, it captures the ambivalence that mothers (and parents) experience. Motherhood may lead you to lose your identity but also discover parts of yourself that you never knew existed. You love your child but there are times when you can feel hatred (a strong and an ineffective word, in Jones’s opinion). But this is what she means by motherhood being a constant state of ambivalence, as has been captured evocatively by Jan Lazarre before when she writes: ‘We learned always to expect sentences to have two parts, the second seeming to contradict the first, the unity lying only in our growing ability to tolerate ambivalence – for that is what motherly love is like’.
Through this book, Jones has achieved to put what mothers are ashamed to talk about with their friends or family, in black and white. While I was reading the book, I was thinking along the lines of ‘Yes! Yes! This is what I experienced’ excitedly sending pictures of excerpts from books to my mother-friends and to my spouse. Ultimately, reading this book made me seen, as a mother. And I hope that it would offer similar wisdom and respite to those who are thinking about having children, who are pregnant and simply those who want to make sense of themselves as they navigate this tenuous part of their lives.
This book also represents a continuation of what Rachel Cusk, the British novelist, tasked women writers to do, which is to ‘write as rawly and negatively as [they] can about the shock of new motherhood and the culture’s failure to prepare for it.’ Jones voices as much – that she hopes that this book would enable women and parents to learn more matresence and offer support to those who need it at a time when they are the most vulnerable.
The writer is an Assistant Professor at CBEC-SIUT.
