Matrescence and Leadership: What Mothers Learn Before Returning to Work
Returning to work after maternity leave can feel unexpectedly complex, even for experienced leaders. Through matrescence, mothers go through a profound identity and leadership transition. Here’s what I’m seeing from real conversations with women in this phase.
Leadership coach for mothers returning to work after maternity leave reflecting on matrescence
Returning to Work After Maternity Leave: What I’m Seeing in Mothers
I haven’t written in a while. And no, it's not because I didn’t have anything to say. But because I’ve been sitting in rooms where saying less felt more important.
Oh, and if you’re new here, welcome. I’m Eve. I work with mothers in leadership navigating the return to work after maternity leave and everything that shifts underneath it. This is a space for honest reflections on matrescence, leadership, and the identity transition women go through when they have a baby.
Over the past few months, I’ve been running in-person matrescence circles with mothers on maternity leave. I’ve focused my energy on holding real conversations, on the ground (quite literally!), with women in one of the most raw and transformative phases of their lives, just before they begin thinking about returning to work after maternity leave.
And a few things are becoming very clear.
Matrescence Awareness Is Growing (But It’s Not Enough)
Around half the women who come through already know the word matrescence. Some have read Matrescence, the gorgeous book by Lucy Jones. Some have come across it through the Tommee Tippee and Peanut campaign to make matrescence mainstream.
That growing awareness matters so much. It’s a huge shift. I remember when I first started talking about matrescence in 2024, in corporate settings I was mostly met with a combo of eye-rolling and glazing over.
But what I’m also seeing is that awareness, on its own, isn’t doing much heavy lifting.
Because knowing the word doesn’t make early motherhood easier. It doesn’t soften the identity shock. It doesn’t automatically build confidence after maternity leave.
And it definitely doesn’t answer the quiet question that creeps in somewhere in the middle:
Who am I now?
Maternity Leave Is a Leadership Transition, Not a Pause. Let’s talk about the Leadership Skills Mothers Develop in Matrescence
The second thing I’m seeing makes me most hopeful.
Matrescence doesn’t weaken leadership. It deepens leadership in ways most workplaces aren’t designed for.
Every single one of these women is changing. And this is the part that’s so easy to miss, they’re not just becoming more “maternal” or “softer”.
They’re developing real leadership skills through matrescence.
Stronger leadership. Not in a polished, corporate competency-framework kind of way, but something deeper, more grounded, less performative.
One woman said recently:
“I know I’m a different woman now. And I love this version of me. I don’t want to go back.”
And there was a ripple of agreement across the room.
Another said:
“I feel like I’m developing strengths I didn’t even know I had. It’s gritty. But I can feel it happening.”
I’ve said this before, but seeing it repeatedly has been incredibly validating:
Returning to work after maternity leave isn’t about ‘getting back to normal’. It’s a leadership transition.
Maternity leave isn’t a pause or a step away from leadership.
It’s more like a very intense, very unstructured leadership boot camp.
A boot camp where patience gets stretched in ways no corporate role ever demands.
Where selflessness is tested daily. Where your sense of identity is stripped back from job titles, ego, structures, and external validation.
You start to see yourself properly.
Sometimes for the first time.
Why Returning to Work After Maternity Leave Feels So Hard
And the third thing I’m noticing is both a reality check and a powerful ripple effect.
Because it would be easy to romanticise matrescence and maternity leave. But two things can be true at the same time.
You can be developing leadership skills and confidence during maternity leave…
and also feel like it might break you in the process.
Some of these conversations are heavy.
There are tears. There is huge loneliness (hello, nuclear family setup and two weeks of paternity leave). There is overwhelm. A lot of overwhelm.
And yet, in the same room, you might have a mother further along the journey. Someone who is through the thickest part.
Living proof that you don’t just survive this identity transition.
You literally expand through it.
The Ripple Effect: How Mothers Are Changing Leadership Culture
And this is the part that genuinely makes my heart beat a bit faster. Because every one of these women will leave that room and carry something forward.
Into their relationships. Into their friendships. And eventually, into their workplaces when returning to work after maternity leave.
They are the women who will challenge the idea of “bouncing back”. They will lead differently.
Because they’ve been listening to their matrescence. Because they’ve developed leadership skills in a way no corporate training could replicate. Because they’ve learned to lead with more awareness, clarity, and self-trust.
And for me, that ripple effect is how culture shifts. Not through policy first.
But through people who refuse to lead the same way they did before.
Final thought
What I’m seeing, again and again, is this:
Matrescence doesn’t weaken leadership. It deepens leadership in ways most workplaces aren’t designed for.
The friction comes from trying to squeeze that deeper, more complex version of a leader back into environments that expect the old one. If you’re somewhere in that in-between, not quite who you were before, not fully who you’re becoming yet, remember this. You’re in the middle of a transition that most workplaces still don’t know how to name.
But it’s something we can start challenging.
If this resonates, I’ve written something for that exact in-between phase.
No sign-ups. No funnel. Just something to sit with.
Head to my homepage and download my In-Between self help essay. Share it with a friend on maternity leave. They need it.
And if you want to support making matrescence mainstream, you can also sign the campaign here: https://www.peanut-app.io/make-matrescence-mainstream