parenting – Research & evidence-based practice for OTs in perinatal health, motherhood, and matrescence

Patrescence: What does is mean to become a father? And does patrescence even exist in Westernised cultures?

(A quiet invitation to reflect)

We’re starting to talk more openly about matrescence as a complex, layered process of becoming a mother across the lifespan, and also during perinatal transitions. But what about patrescence?

We don’t hear much about it, and it hasn’t been developed in research. From a feminist perspective, I think that silence matters.

Recently, I had the privilege of meeting and chatting with a fellow OT pracademic who is also a father, a man, and a deeply respectful and thoughtful human. He’d given patrescence a lot of thought, and our conversations were really thought-provoking. After these discussions, I feel like it’s ok to write this post (fingers-crossed, Rob!). Even though I still feel that defining or speaking for patrescence is outside my scope, I also believe that opening space for the conversation matters.

So, first up – I want to make it clear that this post isn’t here to define the occupational nature of patrescence with certainty, and it’s certainly not to compare gendered roles. It’s also written with full acknowledgement of mothers and parents and non-binary parenting roles- respecting that mother, father, and parent roles form part of the whole picture. The purpose of writing this post is to hold space to acknowledge patrescence and spark a conversation or two on this specific topic.

As a woman, a mother, and someone who works and researches occupational therapy in women’s health and wellbeing, it’s not my place to tell men what the research says about what patrescence is or fatherhood means in society. But I do want to ask questions. Because I think there’s something missing in how we talk about father-becoming, and wonder if it’s time we made some space for it?

I’m not writing this post with any references because I don’t want this to be part of my research. I don’t feel it’s my place. I hope that someone in a different position than I am will read and be inspired by this post to pick up this concept and explore it – not to argue with what I’ve written, point out typos, or pick apart my positionality or obvious biases – but to sit with the moment and recognise the opportunity to find their own path and help us all understand how fatherhood can be supported through patrescence.

If matrescence begins in childhood – what about patrescence?

As discussed in my previous post and textbook – girls are often socialised into caring/mothering roles from a young age. Through play, clothing, language, praise, and cultural narratives, they are slowly shaped into people expected to nurture. They are given dolls, prams, and kitchen sets. They’re taught, subtly and overtly, that their value lies in helping, caring, softening, and serving.

So what are boys given?

Trucks. Tools. Action. Power. Speed. Risk. Leadership. Comedy. Rough-and-tumble. Sport. Independence. Dirt. Sticks. Anything coloured blue, green, or brown.

Of course, these are broad generalisations – shared not as universal truths, but as starting points. They’re offered to set the scene and open space for conversation, reflection, and deeper questioning. Every story is unique, and the nuances matter. The questions we’re focusing on are – What happens when encouraging nurturing occupations aren’t part of boyhood? When caring is seen as feminine, or weak, or extra? Perhaps we’re socialising boys that caring roles should be outsourced? What is being practised in boyhood occupations and roles that supports their development into future caregiving roles? How are systematic influences shaping this?

If we take patrescence as seriously as matrescence, then father-becoming deserves more than a fleeting moment, tokenistic acknowledgement, or symbolic gesture. It is an identity shift, and a profound and potentially lifelong developmental process. But where is the cultural scaffolding to support that? What rituals, transitions, or shared understandings help men make sense of who they are becoming as fathers? And does it even exist in our society? And – with fingers crossed – could understanding patrescence help us work together to better address gendered family violence?

I’ve spent years thinking about matrescence, but – after having a few recent chats with Rob – I find myself wondering in more depth about what the patrescent rites of passage look like for fathers in our society? I first think of the stereotypical of rituals like sharing cigars, making a proud phone call, or the ‘it’s a boy’ announcement. But beyond these gestures, what deeper rituals exist to honour the transformation of becoming a father? And how can we talk about fathers, men, and boys in the same kind of gender-responsive way that the World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending for mothers, women, and girls?

To step to the side a little to find a safe place to step into this conversation- let’s go to Disney movies. The first image that comes to my mind when I think about father-becoming is that iconic moment in The Lion King, when Mufasa stands tall on Pride Rock as his newborn son, Simba, is lifted high into the sky by Rafiki. The sun breaks through the clouds. Music swells. Animals from across the kingdom bow in reverence. All eyes are on the father and his son as the next in line. It’s a scene rich with symbolism: power, legacy, pride, and masculine leadership. Mufasa says nothing, yet his presence is monumental. In that moment, fatherhood isn’t about the day-to-day labour of care, it’s about visibility, recognition, strength, and inheritance. It’s a symbolic cultural performance of identity and status, witnessed by all.

Viewed through van Gennep’s anthropological rites of passage lens, we can reflect on how this scene could be read as a ritual of patrescence. Similar to parturescence (the theory that a woman is transformed into a mother through childbirth), Mufasa is instantly transformed into The Father when his son is born. The act of presentation marks a separation from pre-fatherhood. The moment is liminal, a threshold between who he was and who he now must be. Though silent, his role is active – accepting responsibility, welcoming the child, stepping into a renewed identity. Finally, the ritual affirms his incorporation into a new social role- as father, guide, protector. In this framing, patrescence is not just biological – it’s symbolic, moral, and cultural. It’s a shift that should be acknowledged, supported, and witnessed.

Well. There’s a lot we could unpack about that, but instead… stepping back from the safety of Disney and back into the hot water zone of reality, we need to ask – what does this look like for men in contemporary societies?

Patrescence across the lifespan: A quiet becoming?

Just as I did with my previous post about matrescence, I’ve asked ChatGPT to help develop a list of what the occupational nature of patrescence might look like across the lifespan. Here’s a list of what we came up with:

Childhood: Receiving early messages about what it means to ‘be a man’, a ‘provider’ or ‘be ‘strong’. Engaging in play that may emphasise action, power, leadership, or independence. Rarely invited into caregiving roles, yet quietly observing care all around.

Adolescence: Forming identity in relation to masculinity, sexual virility and competence, emotion, and responsibility. Navigating social norms around dominance, control, autonomy, and emotional expression. Encountering expectations about future roles as providers or protectors.

Young adulthood: Reflecting on what kind of partner or father one might want to be. Deciding (or being expected) to take on fatherhood, biologically or otherwise. Beginning to shift self-concept as care, stability, and legacy enter awareness.

Fathering transitions: Demonstrating fertility. Experiencing the birth or arrival of a child. Negotiating role changes in relationships, work, time, and identity. Moving from imagined fatherhood to embodied responsibility and care. Being socialised into (or isolated from) parenting communities.

Middle-aged adulthood years: Recalibrating identity as children grow and become independent. Moving from ‘doing’ care to ‘holding space’ as a mentor or steady presence. Grieving missed moments, lost relationships, or unmet ideals. Sometimes stepping into care for ageing parents or community roles.

Later life: Becoming a grandfather, mentor, or elder. Reflecting on fatherhood- What did I pass on? Who have I become? Seeking peace with past decisions, absences, or transformations. Engaging in legacy-building through story, presence, or quiet reconciliation.

Like always, using ChatGPT is was a bit of fun – and I think the earlier Lion King questions may have left a trace – so we’re not taking it too seriously. I’m not proposing this is the whole picture or that this is evidence to help define patrescence. I’m offering this discussion as an open invitation for us to check in and get curious together. Are there any points of this that feel right? What else is there? What’s missing? And what would it mean to honour fathers becoming more broadly from a lifespan perspective through patrescence?

Is fatherhood optional?

Matrescence is often expected, positioned as the natural outcome of womanhood and female-gendered individual’s role in society. Patrescence, on the other hand, seems culturally and socially optional, and I would argue that successful ‘good fathering’ is not measured or subjected to moral judgement in the same way that ‘good mothering’ is. There’s loads of reasons for this, which we know. It’s celebrated when done well, but not expected in the same way. And certainly not morally policed with the same intensity.

This difference matters.

Because while many men become fathers, not all experience a deep identity transformation in the process, and society doesn’t necessarily expect them to or hold them to account with idealised standards. Fatherhood doesn’t come with the same structural pressures or emotional labour that mothers are socialised into.

But what if it did?

What might patrescence look like?

If we imagined patrescence as a real, meaningful developmental process, what kinds of occupations would support it?

Learning how to care, emotionally and practically
Reflecting on identity, time, and responsibility
Navigating societal expectations of masculinity
Forming new routines, relationships, and priorities
Processing personal experiences of being fathered (or not)
Choosing the kind of father, co-parent, or caregiver they want to become

These are quiet tasks. Internal shifts. Often invisible. But I think they matter, and as much as matrescence.

What’s stopping us from talking about this?

Is it discomfort? Is it the assumption that men don’t care, or don’t want to reflect? Is it that we’ve normalised the emotional outsourcing of parenthood to mothers? Or that we’re still not quite ready to redefine masculinity in ways that anchor gender-responsive care for men and fathers?

For me, I don’t know. But I definitely feel the discomfort. And, being really honest – it scares me to talk about and explore. It certainly doesn’t feel like a safe space, and it’s not a topic I’m keen to research or discuss any further than this post.

In saying this, I think there are some uncomfortable questions we all need to explore, and I suspect they are deeply important. Not just for men and fathers, but for all of us.

I guess we won’t create space for patrescence until we’re willing to talk about the societal behaviours, patriarchal norms, and cultural conditions that have left it undeveloped, under-supported, and largely unnamed.

What now…? Let’s start by asking ourselves questions.

What were the early messages you received about what fathers do, or don’t do?
Who taught you how to care? What did that look like?
How do we (as a society) prepare boys to become fathers? Do we prepare them at all?
What expectations do we place on men who choose to care deeply and show up emotionally?
What assumptions do we make about who will carry the emotional load of parenting?
What might change if we saw father-becoming as a process, not a performance?

No answers. Just reflection.

This post is simply an invitation to start asking different questions. Patrescence may not yet be widely recognised, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or isn’t happening. Are we ready to create space to understand it? Is there any need? How could it help the world become a better place by addressing injustices from an equity perspective?

No answers from me on this one. Just an invitation for conversation and reflection.

What do you think?

More than pregnancy, birth, and motherhood: Matrescence is a lifelong process

Over the past few years, I’ve watched and cheered as the term matrescence has started to gain traction in our collective conversations. We’re still in the early days, but it’s appearing in perinatal care, parenting spaces, academic literature, the press, and social media. More and more people are hearing it, using it, and trying to make sense of it. It’s exciting that a concept can be so important to so many people. We clearly need it.

But as matrescence gains popularity and visibility, I’ve noticed how quickly we’re trying to contain it. It seems the race is on to define it neatly, frame it clinically, and reduce it to something manageable. We’re doing what dominant Westernised, patriarchal, and colonising systems so often do: we’re shrinking a rich, human experience to make it more contained to make it comfortable, more marketable, and more palatable. We reducing matrescence to mean: pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early motherhood.

Is this really what we want?

Language is incredibly powerful, and matrescence offers us a way out of that reduction. It gives to what so many mothers have long felt but struggled to articulate. It’s a profoundly human, mother-centred concept that validates the complexity of our identities, roles, and emotional landscapes during times of transition – and transformation. So, I’m writing this post as an open invitation to slow down and take a proper pause to reflect on how matrescence is being shaped by our society.

What would we find if we checked in to see how this is still in line with Dana Raphael’s (1975) original anthropological concept of matrescence?
And do we even care if it does, or doesn’t?
Why does it matter, anyway?

For me, it’s a big ‘yes!’, and I’ve spent years working this out to satisfy my own curiosity. In fact, it’s so important to me that I’ve just written a few chapters in the textbook about it! But, if this doesn’t feel important to you, I totally understand.

I think what brings us together is that, for so long, we’ve needed a radical shift to bring mothers back to the centre of medicalised maternity systems. These systems have transformed childbirth and reproductive health in ways that have radically improved health and mortality outcomes for birthing women and infants. But medicalised management of maternity and perinatal care does not offer a perfect or complete solution for the incredibly complex phenomenon of mother-becoming.

The cost of over-medicalised maternity care sits in our (birthing mother’s) needs being reduced to a narrow ‘reproductive health’ lens. This narrow focus often shuts out the emotional, relational, occupational, and existential realities of becoming a mother. Too many women are left feeling objectified, disempowered, or traumatised in being seen only as vessels for reproduction, not as whole human beings. Yes, it’s a huge problem. But it’s not the only factor influencing women’s wellbeing during matrescence.

We are living in a world that often defines success through competition, ownership, and individualism. In this environment, novel and under-explored concepts – like matrescence – can get swept up, polished, and repackaged in ways that strip them of their origins, nuance, and power. I worry that Dana Raphael’s original framing of matrescence in anthropological, relational, and feminist understandings is getting lost in the churn.

As a researcher and academic, I’ve come to understand that my role isn’t to make things easier to hear. It’s to explore complexity with curiosity, to question the narratives we take for granted, and to report on – and do what I can – to hold space for the ideas that haven’t yet found words. So I’m writing this as an academic, and also as a woman and someone who feels a responsibility to speak in a way that encourages others to keep thinking, feeling, and growing, too.

So. I would argue that matrescence isn’t something we need to own, reduce, or contain.

I think what Raphel’s (1975) and Newman’s (1975) original research offered us is a conceptual phenomenon that recognised mother-becoming phase as a rite of passage and socialisation process. The gift in this concept is the we now have a framework to understand motherhood-related challenges and needs that does not pathologise. From an OT perspective, we can see that matrescence is a lifelong, layered, culturally shaped process of having, doing, being, becoming, belonging, and interacting. It’s about identity, care, power, and meaning at the intersection of a female reproductive person and the society they are living in. And unless we’re willing to explore the full concept of matrescence beyond Westernised narratives of motherhood ideals, we risk replicating the very systems that have historically sidelined mothers, (m)others, and mothering, from broader conversations about what it means to be human.

So if matrescence doesn’t start with pregnancy—when does it start?

Dana Raphael’s original conceptualisation of matrescence (1975) invites us to understand mother-becoming as a lifelong, culturally embedded process. It’s not something that begins with a baby. It likely starts much earlier, perhaps in infancy. From an occupational therapy perspective, we can observe how, from the moment a girl is identified or raised as female, subtle messages about care, responsibility, and ‘being a good girl’ begin to shape her occupation-based development. These influences show up in the toys she’s given, the way she’s spoken to, the clothes she wears, the stories she hears, and the roles she sees women performing around her.

Over time, these early and often unspoken cues begin to shape her internalised sense of what it means to mother, or how she is expected to mother, and whether she eventually chooses to have children, is unable to, or is pressured, coerced, or even forced into motherhood. Matrescence, in this broader sense, is not reserved for birthing mothers. It is deeply intertwined with identity, gender, power, societal roles, and cultural values.

When does matrescence end? As a mother, is this even possible?

Perhaps it shifts again during menopause? This life phase seems to be characterised as quiet, confronting transition where society’s gaze often turns away and women begin to feel invisible as they are no longer capable of repoduction. Or perhaps matrescence takes on new form through grandmothering, caring for adult children, or reconfiguring identity after active parenting ends? Maybe we can see matrescence in late life as existential reflection: Was I a good enough mother? What kind of (m)other was I? What legacy have I left behind?

These questions don’t always have answers – and I’m certainly not the authority to say so – one way or the other. But I do think we need to recogise matrescence is not exclusive to women who have birthed or raised children. These questions about matrescence and mothers are uniquely personal in the minds and bodies of all women who navigate a world that continues to measure them against motherhood- whether they embrace, resist, grieve, or reimagine that identity.

There are no neat lines here. Perhaps that’s the point?

Occupations of matrescence: A lifespan perspective

Without repeating the content already explored in our textbook chapters on the occupational nature of matrescence, I’ve used ChatGPT to help generate a brief list of occupations across the lifespan that illustrate how matrescence is expressed, shaped, and experienced through what women and girls do and navigate.

Childhood: Role play with dolls or domestic toys, helping care for younger siblings, receiving gendered praise or responsibilities.
Adolescence: Babysitting, navigating menstruation and reproductive health education, internalising cultural ideals of ‘good womanhood’ or ‘good motherhood’.
Young adulthood: Fertility planning or contraception management, navigating relationships, identity, and societal expectations, choosing or resisting pathways to motherhood and mothering
Perinatal transitions (if relevant): Pregnancy care and birthing, infant care co-occupations (feeding, settling, bonding), reorganising daily routines and occupational roles
Parenting years: Coordinating care (home, school, health), emotional labour, boundary-setting, advocacy, shaping family rituals, values, and rhythms
Menopause and identity shifts: Navigating the end of reproductive years and hormonal transitions, reframing self-worth and womanhood beyond fertility, letting go of certain mothering roles, while renegotiating others, adapting routines, roles, and occupations in response to physical, emotional, and social changes, responding to cultural invisibility (or resisting it) through advocacy, creativity, or reclamation
Midlife transitions: Identity shifts as children grow or leave, caregiving for ageing parents or extended family, reclaiming personal occupations
Later life: Grandmothering or mentoring roles, reflecting on life meaning and motherhood legacy, engaging in memory work, storytelling, and legacy-building
End of life: Reviewing matrescent identity in spiritual, emotional, or relational terms, processing unresolved mothering experiences, shaping how stories of (m)othering are remembered

Matrescence is not a stage or transition. It’s not a medical condition or a milestone to tick off. It’s a rite of passage and transformative phenomenon that is culturally defined and socially contextualised, complex, and nuanced. If we can resist reductionism and simplification, matrescence offers us a humanistic framework to think beyond medicalisation and clinical timelines, normative milestones, and baby-focused care models.

Matrescence is a lifelong process of having, doing, being, becoming, belonging, and interacting. It’s a shifting landscape of individual, reproductive, social, cultural, and political identity. A negotiation between the internal and external, the private and systemic influences. It is complex, nuanced, transformative, and ever-changing. It’s woven through the stories women carry across the lifespan, and – I argue – must not be reduced through a colonised, Westernised, medicalised lenses that are hyper-focused on childbirth and perinatal health. Do we resist this? What happens if we done?

By broadening our reflections on how our sense of self, meaning, and belonging is shaped across the lifespan and in relation to systemic influences, we can start to explore matrescence for individuals and our communities – because it’s not always about the individual. From an occupational therapy perspective, we can think about this in noticing the roles we’re handed, the ones we grow into, and the ones we are expected to perform without question – as well as the roles we’re asking of others and the how medicalisation and colonisation may be influencing our practices.

Where to from here?

Thank you for being curious and open enough to sharing learning on this journey. We’re all still in the early days of learning about matrescence and what it means for ourselves, our children, our communities, and our professions, and hopefully we can continue to do this together.

If you’re curious about what you think but don’t have clear ideas, perhaps start by asking yourself:

When did your understanding of motherhood- or (m)otherhood – begin?
What messages did you grow up with about what women should do, be, or become?
How do those messages show up in how you speak, act, care, or work?
Who were the mother figures – or (m)others – in your life? What roles did they play in shaping your sense of self, safety, or belonging?
What do you expect of mothers today? What do you expect of yourself?
How do you talk about care? Who do you see doing it? Who do you assume will?
When you think of matrescence, whose experiences are included in that picture? Whose are missing?

There’s no pressure to answer. And certainly no judgement. We all have an open invitation to keep wondering, learning, and growing our individual and shared understanding of matrescence.

If you really connect with this term, I gently encourage you to seek out Raphael’s original text. It’s out of print, but I bought my copy second-hand, many public libraries still hold copies. I’ve included as much reference to Raphael’s (1975) and Newman’s (1975) works as I could in my upcoming textbook, but reading it at the source is so important for genuine understanding.

In the next post, we’ll gently turn the question around and ask, ‘what does it mean to become a father, and what is patrescence? Does it even exist…?’. And who are we to even ask these questions…?!

Key source references:

Newman, L. (1975). Reproduction: Introductory notes. In D. Raphael (Ed.), Being female: Reproduction, power, and change (pp. 7-12). Mouton Publishers.

Raphael, D. (1975). Matrescence, becoming a mother: A “new/old” rite de passage. In D. Raphael (Ed.), Being female: Reproduction, power, and change (pp. 65-72). Mouton Publishers.