7 Things Nobody Tells You Before Becoming a Mom

Nobody told me that finding out I hadn't been invited on a trip because I have a baby now would be the thing that got me.

It wasn't even really about the trip. It was what the trip represented. Before having a baby, I could go somewhere. Make plans. Change my mind. Spend a Saturday doing whatever I wanted without coordinating naps, childcare, bottles, bedtime, or approximately 47 other things first.

And suddenly, I wasn't even being asked.

It stung more than I expected because it was one of those moments when I realized: Oh. My life really is different now.

My son is almost 10 months old, and I'm still figuring out this whole becoming-a-mom thing. I'm also a therapist, which means I've spent a lot of time thinking about this transition both professionally and while very much living in the middle of it myself.

And there are a few things I really wish someone had said out loud before I became a mom. Especially this first one.

1. You can love your baby and still miss your old life

These two things are allowed to exist in the same sentence: I love my baby, and I miss my old life. One doesn't make the other less true.

I think this is one of the harder things to admit because motherhood comes with this weird expectation that if you wanted your baby and you love your baby, you should somehow be perfectly happy with everything that came along with having them.

But you gained something enormous and you lost things too. Your days changed. Your relationships may have changed. Your body changed. Your freedom changed. Your priorities changed. The way you spend your time changed. In some ways, the person you understood yourself to be changed.

Of course there can be grief in that.

Grieving parts of your old life isn't the same as wishing your baby wasn't part of your new one. You don't have to choose between being grateful for what you have and being honest about what you miss.

2. What you miss might be much smaller than you expect

When I started asking myself what I actually missed about my old life, I expected some big dramatic revelation. Instead, I kept coming back to really ordinary things.

Going to the gym without having to figure out childcare first. Walking my dog whenever I felt like it. Deciding I wanted to do something and...just doing it. Finishing something and feeling productive. Having a day that felt like mine.

And that's when I realized I didn't necessarily miss the things themselves. I missed how those things made me feel: free, capable, independent, spontaneous, like I had some control over my own time.

That distinction has actually been really helpful for me because I can't recreate my pre-baby life right now. Nor do I necessarily want to.

But I can ask: What am I actually craving when I say I miss my old life?

Because once you know the feeling you're missing, you can start looking for smaller ways to get some of it back.

3. The identity shift can start before you even have the baby

I assumed becoming a mom would happen when someone handed me a baby. For me, it started much earlier.

I remember feeling my identity changing during pregnancy and not really knowing what to do with that feeling. My body wasn't completely mine anymore. Decisions suddenly had different consequences. People interacted with me differently. The future I'd always pictured started rearranging itself around this person I hadn't even met yet.

I was becoming someone's mom before I really understood what that meant.

That's one of the things I find so interesting about motherhood now: there isn't actually one moment when you become a mother. Birth might be the obvious dividing line, but psychologically, the transition can start much earlier and continue long after your baby arrives.

Which brings me to something I really wish more women knew about.

4. Maternal instinct doesn't always magically arrive on cue

I think we're sold a pretty powerful story about maternal instinct: you'll just know. You'll know what the cry means. You'll know what your baby needs. You'll know how to soothe them. You'll know what to do because you're their mom.

And then you have the baby and sometimes you're standing there thinking, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

That can feel surprisingly shameful. Because if we're told women are naturally supposed to know how to mother, not knowing starts to feel like evidence that something is wrong with us.

But you're learning. You've never parented this baby before. You've never been this version of yourself before. You're learning another human being while sleep deprived and recovering from one of the biggest physical and psychological transitions of your life.

Maybe we should expect a learning curve.

Not knowing what you're doing yet doesn't mean you don't have what it takes to be a good mom. It might just mean you've never done this before.

5. You don't have to believe motherhood is your "purpose" to love being a mom

People sometimes ask, "Can you even imagine your life before you were a mom?"

Yes. Very clearly, actually.

I think that question probably lands differently for women who always knew they wanted to be mothers. That wasn't me. I never had the overwhelming I was born to be a mom feeling. I was open to motherhood. I chose it. And I'm incredibly glad this particular little person is mine.

But motherhood didn't suddenly erase all the other things I wanted from my life. And I don't think it has to.

You can love being someone's mom without making motherhood your entire identity. You can care deeply about your child and still care about your career, your friendships, your relationship, your ambitions, your hobbies, travel, money, creativity, your body, your freedom, and the things you haven't even discovered that you'll care about yet.

For me, the question has become less "How do I become the kind of mom I'm supposed to be?" and more "How do I make motherhood fit into a life that still feels like mine?"

That feels like a much more interesting question.

6. There's actually a word for what you're going through

One of the biggest ohhhhhh moments for me was learning that this whole identity earthquake actually has a name.

It's called matrescence.

The term was introduced by anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s and has since been expanded on by researchers including reproductive psychologist Aurélie Athan. Matrescence describes the developmental transition of becoming a mother, including the psychological, social, physical, and identity changes that can come with it.

It's often compared to adolescence, and I actually love that comparison. We expect adolescence to be messy. Your body changes. Your relationships change. Your priorities change. You're trying to figure out who you are while everyone around you suddenly seems to have opinions about who you should be.

Sound familiar?

Yet when women become mothers, we often act as though they're supposed to absorb an equally enormous identity shift and somehow emerge on the other side immediately knowing who they are.

Of course you might feel a little lost. You're in the middle of becoming someone you've never been before. And unlike adolescence, there isn't necessarily a neat point where someone announces that the transition is over.

If you want to understand this more deeply, I wrote about it in Matrescence: Becoming a Mother and Losing Yourself.

7. Finding yourself again probably won't happen through one big dramatic change

This might be the thing I'm learning most right now.

I kept thinking about getting my old life back, but I'm starting to think that's the wrong goal. I don't actually want my exact old life back. My son is part of my life now, and there are parts of this version of me I really like.

What I want is to recognize myself inside this new life.

And I'm finding that happens in surprisingly small ways. Not through reinventing myself or booking a solo trip to Bali or creating a twelve-step plan to "find myself again."

Sometimes it's going for a walk by myself. Reading about something that has absolutely nothing to do with parenting. Setting a goal that's mine. Doing something because I'm curious about it, not because it's productive. Getting really specific about what I miss and asking whether there's a smaller version of it available to me right now.

If you're feeling lost in motherhood, I'd start there. Ask yourself: What do I actually miss? Then go one level deeper: What did that give me? Freedom? Competence? Adventure? Connection? Achievement? Quiet? Independence?

And finally: What's the smallest version of that I could give myself this week?

You probably don't need to completely reinvent your life. You might just need a few more places inside it that still feel like yours.

When it might be more than the normal adjustment to motherhood

There is a difference between struggling with the transition into motherhood and struggling in a way that deserves more support.

Mixed feelings, grief, overwhelm, and missing parts of your old life can all be part of becoming a mother. But if sadness, anxiety, irritability, numbness, or other changes are persistent, intense, or interfering with your ability to function, it's worth talking to someone.

You don't have to wait until things are unbearable before you're "allowed" to ask for help. Therapy can also simply be a place to figure out: Who am I now?

Because maybe the goal isn't getting the old you back. Maybe it's figuring out which parts of her you're bringing with you, which parts you've outgrown, and who you want to become next.

You don't have to choose between being a mom and being you

I think that's the thing I wish I'd understood earlier.

Becoming a mother changes you. But motherhood gets to become part of your identity. It doesn't have to become all of it.

You can love the person you became a mom to and still want a life that contains things that belong completely to you. I'm still figuring out what that looks like too.

If this felt a little like someone had been reading your thoughts, this is exactly the kind of thing we can talk about in therapy. I offer virtual therapy for new moms who love their babies and are also trying to figure out who the heck they are now.

You can book a free 15-minute therapy consult and we'll see if working together feels like a good fit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it normal to miss your old life after having a baby?

Yes. Missing parts of your life before motherhood can coexist with deeply loving your baby. Becoming a mother can change your identity, routines, relationships, freedom, and sense of autonomy. It's possible to be grateful for your new life and still grieve parts of the old one.

Does missing my old life mean I regret having a baby?

Not necessarily. Missing something you've lost isn't the same as wishing your current life away. You can love your child, feel grateful they're here, and still miss the freedom or identity you had before becoming a mom.

What is matrescence?

Matrescence is the developmental transition of becoming a mother. It can include physical changes as well as shifts in identity, relationships, emotions, priorities, and the way you understand yourself. It's often compared to adolescence because both involve significant developmental change.

Why don't I feel like I have a maternal instinct?

There's a strong cultural expectation that mothers will automatically know what their babies need. In reality, becoming a parent involves learning. Not immediately feeling confident or instinctively knowing what to do doesn't automatically say anything about your ability to be a good mother.

How long does it take to feel like yourself again after having a baby?

There isn't one timeline that applies to everyone. And "feeling like yourself" may not mean returning to exactly who you were before. For some women, it's more about developing a new sense of self that makes room for motherhood without losing the parts of themselves that still matter.

Why do I feel guilty for missing who I was before becoming a mom?

Motherhood is often surrounded by expectations about how mothers should feel: grateful, fulfilled, instinctive, selfless. When your actual experience is more complicated than that, guilt can creep in. Having mixed feelings doesn't automatically mean something is wrong; it may mean your experience is more nuanced than the version of motherhood we're usually shown.

When should I talk to a therapist?

You don't need to meet some imaginary threshold of struggling before therapy is an option. You might seek support because you're feeling persistently anxious or low, because you're overwhelmed, or simply because you don't feel like yourself anymore and want somewhere to make sense of that.

References

1. Athan AM. A critical need for the concept of matrescence in perinatal psychiatry. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2024. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11220490/

2. NPR. The Process of Becoming a Mother Has a Name: Matrescence.

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