Podcast Interviews
School of Mothers
“The mother is the beginning of everything yet she’s often the last called to the table” Dr Aurelie Athan joins me for an episode about motherhood, identity, and so much more. Aurelie’s a reproductive psychologist and faculty member at Columbia University where she’s revived the term Matrescence. Her work is revolutionary – unlike the majority of academic studies into motherhood she focuses on the actual mother (not their children). She studies mothers’ development holistically, both their thriving AND distress. In this episode we explore how her work on matrescence led her to new work around reproductive identity.
Interviewer: Danusia Malina-Derben
Source: School of Mothers
The Becoming Podcast
Welcome to the eighth episode of The Becoming Podcast!
I am delighted to have Dr. Aurélie Athan on the show with me today. Aurélie is a professor at Columba University in New York City, and is the world’s leading researcher in matrescence and the transition to motherhood.
To say that this conversation was absolutely sparkling is an understatement. Aurélie and I talked about what matrescence, or the transition to motherhood, is, and, as she says, “how to raise a mother.” We talked about the pathologization and the potential of this transition in women’s lives, and how challenging our modern-day context can make this process of initiation and growth.
We dove into the inner workings of the psychology of matrescence with a depth of conversation that is rare in today’s discourse around postpartum, talking about “the next level” of postpartum support that goes beyond saying *that* the transition to motherhood happens and into *how* it happens.
We also talked about motherhood as a spiritual path, a path toward sovereignty and self-authorship, matricentric feminism, and the competencies that motherhood teaches us that lend themselves to leadership and, you know, smashing the patriarchy and saving the world.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this is probably one of the richest conversations about the psychology of matrescence I’ve heard (and gotten to participate in!) in all my years of working in this field. This truly is the “next level” of how we understand and traverse the transition to motherhood, and it will be fascinating for both mothers and birth and postpartum support workers alike. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Date: September 2020
Interviewer: Jessie Harold
Source: The Becoming Podcast
School of Mothers
“The mother is the beginning of everything yet she’s often the last called to the table” Dr Aurelie Athan joins me for an episode about motherhood, identity, and so much more. Aurelie’s a reproductive psychologist and faculty member at Columbia University where she’s revived the term Matrescence. Her work is revolutionary – unlike the majority of academic studies into motherhood she focuses on the actual mother (not their children). She studies mothers’ development holistically, both their thriving AND distress. In this episode we explore how her work on matrescence led her to new work around reproductive identity.
Date: March 2021
Interviewer: Danusia Malina-Derben
Source: School of Mothers
Women without Kids
Self-identifying when it comes to our procreative potential
Psychologist Aurelie Athan on the emerging concept of “Reproductive Identity.” In the episode we discuss:
-How Aurelie defines the concept of “reproductive identity” and how she came to this work
-The different life experiences that help to form our reproductive identity – and how this intersects with other identity markers
-The cultural and social developments that have shifted the narrative about who is “supposed to” have children, and why
-Why the transitions and developmental phases of mid-life have been so unexamined
-Evolving attitudes to the concept of “generatively” – what we are contributing to future generations
-The impact professionally and culturally of women delaying motherhood to prioritize education and personal development
-How not becoming a parent is its own developmental phase psychologically
-The specific factors can help inform our “reproductive orientation” – and why some people are naturally “a-reproductive” (as in a-sexual) with no desire to reproduce
-How to create more space for ambivalence and fluidity in terms of reproductive identity and / or orientation
-The importance of having our self-identity verified by the way we are received in the world
-The importance of creating new language to describe the full spectrum of emerging reproductive identities
-The wider and ongoing implications for the concept of reproductive identity being embraced in the mainstream
Date: June 2021
Interviewer: Ruby Warrington
Source: School of Mothers