What you’re experiencing is real, and it has a name.
It’s called matrescence. Naming it can change everything.
If you’re a parent feeling lost, overwhelmed, or foggy—you are not broken.
You are in a transition. It has a name, a science, and a path forward.
That word has always existed. You were never alone in this.
The dictionary is just now catching up.
You are in the right place.
So, what exactly is matrescence?
Matrescence is the developmental passage of becoming a mother. Anthropologist Dana Raphael, Ph.D., first coined the term in 1973 in the context of maternal transitions. Reproductive psychologist Aurélie Athan, Ph.D., at Teachers College, Columbia University, expanded its use, developing research, training practitioners, and advocating for its integration into medicine, psychology, policy, and public life.
Like adolescence, matrescence unfolds across many domains: biological, emotional, social, political, and spiritual. It starts before a child arrives and recurs with each child. Its effects can echo across a lifetime.
At its core, matrescence involves two parallel processes. The brain and body go through measurable, documented changes—some temporary, some lasting. Your inner world also shifts. Identity, values, priorities, and sense of meaning are all restructured.1
Most people going through this lack the language or framework. Most support isn’t designed for this layer of experience. Parents are often told they’re just tired, that it’s just hormones, or that it’s just an adjustment period.
It’s not just anything. Matrescence is one of the most significant neurological and identity transitions a human being goes through.
A note on language:
Research on matrescence has focused on the birthing parent’s experience. That science remains important and specific. But the developmental passage of becoming a parent—identity restructuring, cognitive load, and questioning who you are now—doesn’t belong only to those who identify as mothers. Dr. Athan calls this broader experience M/otherhood. It extends to non-birthing, adoptive, and all kinds of parents. At Focus Like A Mother™, when we say “parent brain,” we mean all parents.
1(Athan, A. (2016, updated 2026). Working definition of matrescence. Retrieved from https://www.matrescence.com/)
Your brain is reorganizing. Not Broken.
The neuroscience of matrescence—supported by peer-reviewed studies—continues to grow. Research in top scientific journals now examines how parenthood affects the brain. Here’s what recent studies reveal.
Pregnancy triggers measurable structural changes in the brain. Researchers compare the scope of these changes to adolescence. Gray matter reorganizes in regions responsible for emotion, threat detection, memory, and decision-making. Studies show these effects can last for years.
In 2023, research showed that about 8 in 10 mothers report experiencing cognitive changes during the transition to parenthood. Many don’t know what’s happening, that it has a name, or that it has scientific evidence to support it.2
These experiences are signs of adaptation, not decline. Your brain is changing so you can learn quickly and be the best parent for your unique child. Babies don’t come with manuals. The brain rewires to meet the demands of parenting—sharpening threat detection, deepening emotional attunement, and strengthening pattern recognition. The shifts that leave you scattered in meetings also make you alert to your child’s smallest sound.
The problem isn’t your brain. No one prepared you for this transformation. Most parents navigate these changes without a map or support designed for the cognitive and identity layers of the experience.
That gap is what Focus Like A Mother™ was built to fill.
2(Orchard, E. R., Rutherford, H. J. V., Holmes, A. J., & Jamadar, S. D. (2023). Matrescence: Lifetime impact of motherhood on cognition and the brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(10), 974.)
Does any of this sound familiar?
- You used to be sharp and on top of everything.
- The systems you had worked on, and you followed through. Now you walk into rooms and forget why you’re there.
- Blanking on words mid-sentence. Lying awake, thinking about permission slips, appointments, and everything you need to do.
- You love your children fiercely. And you are exhausted in a way that sleep doesn’t fully fix.
- Maybe you’ve Googled “mom brain.” Maybe you’ve blamed yourself. You might wonder if this is just how parenthood feels.
Here’s what is true: These experiences are part of matrescence. This is the cognitive and identity layer of a real developmental transition — not a flaw, and not something you should have to push through alone.
Matrescence doesn’t have a clear end date. If your youngest isn’t a newborn but the fog and overload remain, it is still part of your parent life. The mental load, identity shifts, and demands of raising children are all part of the journey. You don’t have to be newly postpartum to be in the thick of it.
You don’t need to be in crisis to deserve support.
It is enough to be in something hard.
Having a name is the first step. Having a plan is next.
Understanding matrescence is powerful. Naming what’s happening—having language for identity shifts, cognitive changes, and the invisible mental load—brings relief for many.
But naming it is not the same as knowing where to find support.
Most support systems aren’t designed for that next step—not because they fall short, but because this layer wasn’t part of their scope. It really does take a village — and the best-supported parents are the most likely to find their footing.
That village includes the people closest to you: family, friends, parent groups, and childcare providers who show up in the daily moments. It also includes the professionals who address your physical recovery, mental health, feeding, and perinatal care. Each part of that village does something the others can’t.
What’s missing from that village is someone dedicated to cognition and executive function during matrescence outside of the clinical space—the decision fatigue, memory slips, and follow-through struggles. The work also goes deeper: finding your footing as a whole person, not just filling a role. It’s figuring out who you are now—not as a mother, employee, caretaker, or spouse, but as yourself. It’s also learning to self-advocate for how you want to show up at this stage. That is what parent brain coaching addresses—one more layer of the village, designed for this.
Focus Like A Mother™ is a brain-based coaching practice rooted in the neuroscience of matrescence. Every program draws on evidence-based methodology — cognitive behavioral coaching, solution-focused techniques, executive function scaffolding, and the REVEAL™ Model — to help you understand what’s happening in your brain and build strategies that actually work in your real life.
This is not therapy. It is not medical care. It works alongside both, addressing the part of the journey that doesn’t show up in a chart but often determines whether you can follow through on everything else.
Hi, I’m Megan.
A mom of two, a problem-solver by nature, and someone who spent nearly two decades in productivity and process optimization before matrescence stopped me in my tracks — twice.
The first time, I did what I always do: I looked for answers. I found support for the practical pieces of new parenthood. For my mind and sense of self, the options were limited — clinical support when things reached a crisis point, and a handful of books that were only just being written. The field was emerging in real time as I lived it.
The second time, I got ahead of it. I was already in therapy, working through my first birth experience — and I hired a coach with expertise in executive function alongside it. The two worked together in ways I hadn’t expected. She walked my pregnancy and postpartum journey with me, and what started as looking for strategies to get through became something much more grounding.
She taught me what structured support and validation could actually look like — and that changed how I thought about what was possible. And still, the parent-brain-specific piece wasn’t there. I couldn’t find anyone combining emerging neuroscience, executive function scaffolding, and identity work into a program specifically designed for parents in this transition. So I built it.
I bring nearly two decades of productivity expertise, an evidence-based approach grounded in neuroscience and positive psychology, my ICF coaching credential, and my own matrescence journey to every client.
Matrescence is a journey — a transformation. I would love to support you through it.
Where do you want to start?
Ready to talk?
Schedule your Free Discovery Call.
We’ll talk about what’s going on and whether coaching is a good fit. Ask questions, get honest answers, and receive a follow-up email with personalized recommendations.
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Take the Parent Brain Quiz.
Not sure what kind of support fits right now? Take the quick, free quiz to identify your parent brain experience and get a next step that fits you. It only takes about five minutes.
Want to explore first?
Browse free resources.
Guides, worksheets, blog posts, and the newsletter;
all built around the neuroscience of matrescence.
Matrescence is having a moment. But You were never alone.
This moment has been decades in the making.
On February 22, 2026, that started to shift. Peanut and Tommee Tippee ran a full-page ad in the New York Times to campaign for “matrescence” to be added to the dictionary — alongside a global petition, influencer partnerships, and a push to update autocorrect across Apple, Google, and Microsoft so the word no longer shows up as a typo. As of March 22, 2026, more than 10,000 people have already signed.
The experience you’ve been living has always had a name. Now more people are learning about it.
If you’re one of them, welcome. You have found a piece of support that was missing.
Dr. Dana Raphael coined it in 1973. Dr. Aurélie Athan has spent years working to establish matrescence as a recognized field of study — publishing the research, training practitioners, and pushing the conversation into medicine, psychology, policy, and public life. The groundwork has always been there. It just hadn’t reached the mainstream yet.
And if you’d like to add your voice — to help make matrescence a recognized, understood part of human experience — you can sign the petition here.
What Else to Explore
Wherever you are in this — just discovering the word, deep in the fog, or somewhere in between — there’s a next step that fits.
Understand the science in plain language: The research on the parental brain is real, growing, and worth knowing. Is Mom Brain Real? The Surprising Truth About Your Changing Brain →
Review the evidence: A curated reference list of peer-reviewed research behind the work at Focus Like A Mother™. Research Evidence & Studies →
See what support actually looks like: The REVEAL™ Model is the evidence-based framework behind every FLAM program. Evidence-Based Solutions for Parent Brain Fog →
Find your pattern: Five parent brain types. One free quiz. Personalized strategies from a professional coach delivered straight to your inbox — specific to your type, not generic advice. Take the Parent Brain Type Quiz →
Connect with other parents: The Parent Brain Hub is a private, dedicated community for parents navigating this together. Prefer Facebook? The Society of the Incredible Mom Brain is there, too. Join the Parent Brain Hub → | Join on Facebook →
Stay in the loop: The Parent Brain Newsletter brings research, strategies, and real talk directly to your inbox. Subscribe →
Ready to talk? A free 30-minute Discovery Call. No preparation, no obligation — just an honest conversation about what’s going on and whether coaching is a good fit. Book Your Free Call →