You clap, you cheer, you take the photos — and then, somewhere between the birthday cake and bedtime, something tender and heavy settles in your chest. Another year gone. Another version of your child you will never hold again. If you have ever cried after a milestone that everyone else called a celebration, you are having a deeply human response to loving someone through change and growth. You are a mother who loves deeply and is paying attention. Matrescence — the psychological, neurological, and relational transformation of becoming and being a mother — does not end at birth. It unfolds across every school year, every lost tooth, every last time you carry them without knowing it was the last time. Anthropologist Dana Raphael, who first introduced the term in her 1973 book The Tender Gift: Breastfeeding, understood that this transition rivals adolescence in its intensity. And yet, our culture rarely gives mothers permission to grieve what is passing, even when joy is genuinely present. This blog is for you if you have ever stood in a doorway watching your child sleep and felt, all at once, so proud and so heartbroken. That co-occurrence is not a contradiction — it is one of the most honest emotional experiences of motherhood.

What Is Matrescence — and Why Does It Make Milestones So Complicated?

Developmental psychologist Dr. Aurélie Athan of Teachers College, Columbia University, has dedicated her career to reviving and expanding the concept of matrescence, describing it as a developmental passage that fundamentally reshapes identity across biological, neurological, psychological, social, and existential domains (Athan, 2024). Author and clinical psychologist Dr. Molly Millwood, in To Have and to Hold (2019), extends this framework: becoming a mother does not simply add a role — it reorganizes who you are. When your child reaches a new milestone, you are not just celebrating their growth. You are also being asked to release a version of yourself — the mother of a baby, a toddler, a kindergartner. Every developmental leap your child takes is also a marker of your own evolving identity. Neuroscientist and doula Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum, in The Nurture Revolution (2023), highlights how the caregiving brain is wired for deep attunement and co-regulation. This neurological bond means that transitions in your child's life are genuinely felt in your nervous system — not metaphorically, but biologically. The grief that surfaces at milestones is a sign that your attunement is working exactly as it should.

The Name for What You Are Feeling: Anticipatory Grief and Ambiguous Loss

Psychologists use the term "ambiguous loss" to describe grief that does not have a clear object — the person is still here, but something has changed irreversibly. Researcher Pauline Boss, who developed the theory, describes this as one of the most difficult forms of grief precisely because there is no clear marker, no ritual, no socially sanctioned space to mourn (Boss, 2000). Milestone grief in motherhood fits this pattern precisely: your child is thriving, and yet the version of them you knew is gone. Dr. Sophie Brock, a Motherhood Studies sociologist at the University of Sydney and host of The Good Enough Mother podcast, writes that mothers are rarely given language for the full emotional complexity of the role. We are handed a cultural narrative of unambiguous joy — and when our actual experience includes loss, longing, or exhaustion alongside the love, we often turn the confusion inward as shame (Brock, 2019–present). Her work invites mothers to stop pathologizing their ambivalence and start understanding it as a sociological and psychological reality of raising human beings across time. Anticipatory grief — grief about what is coming — also surfaces here. The first day of school is not just today's transition; it is the first in a long line of separations that will eventually lead to your child leaving home. A mother's nervous system can hold all of that at once. Postpartum Support International (PSI) recognizes that perinatal and maternal mental health needs do not end at the postpartum period — the transition of motherhood continues to produce moments of profound emotional complexity throughout the parenting journey (Postpartum Support International, n.d.).

Why Joy and Grief Are Not Opposites — They Are Partners

One of the most important things therapy can offer a mother is the permission to hold two seemingly opposing feelings at the same time — what psychologists call the dialectical experience of emotion. You do not have to choose between being grateful and being sad. You do not have to be "over it" before you are allowed to celebrate the next thing. Dr. Millwood (2019) writes that one of the most important tragedies of modern motherhood is the expectation that love should feel uncomplicated. But love that spans years — love that watches someone grow from helplessness to independence — is inherently a grieving love. To love someone's becoming is to be in constant relationship with endings. Dr. Kirshenbaum's neuroscience lens adds something important here: the brain does not experience positive and negative emotion in simple opposition. The regions governing attachment and emotional processing hold complexity. When you cry at your child's first recital, your brain is not malfunctioning — it is doing the most sophisticated thing it knows how to do: loving something finite (Kirshenbaum, 2023). Culturally, we have pathologized a mother's tears at celebrations. Clinically, we understand them as the mark of a nervous system doing its job.

Five Things That May Help When Milestone Grief Arrives

You do not need to fix this feeling — but you can create space for it to move through you rather than get stuck. Here are five grounded, practical strategies:

Name it before it builds. Before a big milestone — a birthday, the last day of a grade, a transition out of a program — give yourself permission to anticipate the grief. Naming the emotion ahead of time reduces its intensity. Try: "I know this week will bring up some big feelings. That is okay and expected."
Create a small ritual of acknowledgment. Rituals signal to the nervous system that something significant is happening and being honoured. Write a letter to the version of your child you are saying goodbye to. Light a candle. Save one small item from this chapter. Ritual does not prolong grief — it helps it resolve.
Regulate before you connect. Dr. Kirshenbaum's research emphasizes co-regulation: when a caregiver is dysregulated, children feel it. Before a milestone moment, take three slow, exhale-extended breaths to signal safety to your own nervous system — so you can be present for theirs.
Talk to another mother, not just social media. Dr. Brock's work on maternal isolation underscores that mothers need genuine community — spaces where ambivalence is welcome. A conversation with a trusted friend who validates your complexity is far more regulating than a comment section that only affirms the highlight reel.
Consider whether this grief is layered. For some mothers, milestone grief is compounded by earlier losses — pregnancy loss, a difficult birth, a child's diagnosis, or their own childhood wounds. If what surfaces feels disproportionate or persistent, that is not weakness. It may be an invitation to look deeper with professional support.

When This Is More Than the Ordinary Ache: Recognizing When Support Matters

For many mothers, milestone grief is a healthy, passing response to the irreversible nature of time. But for some, it can be a signal that something deeper needs care. Postpartum Support International reminds us that maternal mental health conditions — including depression, anxiety, and grief responses — can emerge or re-emerge at any point in the parenting journey, not only in the first year postpartum (Postpartum Support International, n.d.). It may be worth reaching out for support if you notice:

Persistent sadness or emotional numbness lasting more than a few weeks after a transition
Difficulty being present or bonding with your child at this new stage
Intrusive thoughts, significant sleep disruption, or a sense of dread about your child growing up
Feelings of guilt or shame about your emotional experience as a mother
A sense that your identity has collapsed alongside your child's growing independence These are not signs of a bad mother.

They are signs of a nervous system that is carrying something too heavy to hold alone. Therapies such as EMDR therapy in Calgary for trauma and loss, Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, and attachment-focused therapy can be particularly supportive for mothers navigating identity shifts, grief, and the emotional complexity of this ongoing developmental passage.

Restoring Connection: You Are Allowed to Hold It All

Motherhood is a long and layered passage — not a single event, but a series of thresholds, each one asking you to let go a little and love a little more fiercely at the same time. The grief that comes with your child's growth is not a problem to be solved. It is proof of the depth of the relationship you have built. At Eckert Centre, we believe that maternal wellbeing is not a luxury — it is the ground from which children grow. You deserve the same quality of care, attunement, and support that you give so freely to everyone else in your family. Whether you are navigating the tender grief of milestones, the disorientation of matrescence, or deeper layers of loss, our team is here.

Explore our prenatal and postpartum counselling in Calgary and adult counselling services — or reach out to learn how we can support you at this stage of the journey. (403) 230-2959 | info@eckert-psychology.com | Book Online | Free 15-Minute Consultation

About the Author

Kymberley Calhoun, M.C., is a Registered Psychologist at Eckert Psychology & Education Centre in Calgary, AB, specializing in child, adolescent, parent, and perinatal mental health. She holds advanced training as a Certified Pediatric Sleep and Development Specialist and is trained in Perinatal Mood Disorders: Components of Care. Kymberley's clinical practice is grounded in attachment science, developmental psychology, and neurodiversity-affirming approaches — with a particular focus on the emotional complexity of early parenthood, infant and child mental health, and the inner world of mothers navigating identity, grief, and connection across the parenting journey. She uses an integrative therapeutic toolbox that includes EMDR (Child Specialist), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Circle of Security – Parenting (COS-P), and Theraplay. In sessions with children, she incorporates play, art, books, sand tray, and storytelling to meet children where they are. Kymberley supports parents of neurodiverse children (ADHD and ASD) and provides psychoeducational assessments for children and adults. She brings both clinical expertise and genuine warmth to her work, and considers it a privilege to walk alongside families. To connect with Kymberley, visit her here.

References

Athan, A. M. (2024). A critical need for the concept of matrescence in perinatal psychiatry. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, 1364845. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1364845

Boss, P. (2000). Ambiguous loss: Learning to live with unresolved grief. Harvard University Press.

Brock, S. (Host). (2019–present). The good enough mother [Audio podcast]. https://drsophiebrock.com/podcast

Kirshenbaum, G. (2023). The nurture revolution: Grow your baby's brain and transform their mental health through the art of nurtured parenting.

Balance. Millwood, M. (2019). To have and to hold: Motherhood, marriage, and the modern dilemma. Harper Wave.

Postpartum Support International. (n.d.). Perinatal mental health. https://www.postpartum.net

Raphael, D. (1973). The tender gift: Breastfeeding. Prentice-Hall.