Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood

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In fact, cells from the fallopian tube are required to secrete chemicals that allow the sperm to swim and mature, then the egg must enfold it.

Losing Eden rigorously and convincingly tells of the value of the natural universe to our human hearts. I didn’t know how to talk about the existential crisis I was facing, or the confronting, encompassing relationship I was now in. Here is an urgent examination of the modern institution of motherhood, which seeks to unshackle all parents from oppressive social norms.

Jones sheds a fascinating light on the plethora of issues surrounding how childbirth and mothering fits (or fails to fit) into the current social and economic systems of the modern, western world.

However, even if you've had a straightforward birth and received support for childcare, every woman (not just mothers) can relate to the stories in this book. Speaking about motherhood as anything other than a pastel-hued dream remains, for the most part, taboo. I feel like I’ve finally been seen in this indescribable journey of what I now understand to be ‘Matrescence’. Generally it seems like the author was, prior to and during her matrescence, securely ensconced in the sort of “feminism” that expects women to desire nothing more (or less or different) than the peak of capitalist achievement, and then those women turn 30 and realise a kid would be nice too, and expect that they can slot that in like taking up knitting. She reveals the dangerous consequences of our neglect of the maternal experience and interrogates the patriarchal and capitalist systems that have created the untenable situation mothers face today.Her first book, Foxes Unearthed, was celebrated for its 'brave, bold and honest' (Chris Packham) account of our relationship with the fox, winning the Society of Authors' Roger Deakin Award 2015.

A radical new examination of the transition into motherhood and how it affects the mind, brain and body. To have journeyed , and still be journeying, through this wild, raw, many coloured land of such unknowns, and to share that journey-the pain and the joy; the grief and love; the anxiety and the hope - in this way is nothing short of grace.

And those who fall in love with the world might protect it, a virtuous cycle that would make a real difference in the fight for a workable planet - Bill McKibben, author of Falter; Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? We don’t properly recognise “the psychological and physiological significance of becoming a mother: how it affects the brain, the endocrine system, cognition, immunity, the psyche, the microbiome, the sense of self”.

She previously worked at NME and the Daily Telegraph, and her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in GQ, BBC Wildlife, The Sunday Times, the Guardian and the New Statesman. 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). But as the book went on I found I enjoyed reading about vampire bats and aurora borealis and spiders that eat their own mothers, and found her desire to place matrescence within the context of a wider ecology, and her emphasis on “the psychic and corporeal reality of our interdependence and interconnectedness with other species”, admirable. Jones never becomes bogged down in the material, which is quite an achievement considering its scope. Her fascinating exploration of the new science of our connection to the natural world emphasises the untold psychological cost of environmental degradation and climate catastrophe.What I found instead was a boundary-pushing book that is altogether tricksier, more complex and creative, transcending even the “part-memoir, part-critical analysis” genre that has become such a commonplace format for female authors in recent years. She challenges the ideal of the nuclear family raising children in western societies, when babies are raised by networks of “othermothers” across the world, and in the animal kingdom, including in colonies of bats. I absolutely related to lots of the book, and really tried to take the first few chapters from an objective point of view because I did not have the same experiences when it came to child birth and breastfeeding, but I do completely understand that the emphasis was on the pressure that the ‘natural mother’ rhetoric puts on women. throughout the entire thing, which just seems like such an obvious question of how on earth the author could possibly have thought differently? I’m not sure whether I would have wanted to read this before I had my daughter but I’m glad to have read this now.