Matrescence and Parentship: The essential elements for new parents

I want to share some thoughts about the concept of "Parentship" and why I came up with this term. Recently, my husband and I were interviewed for a book about early parenthood. The interview made me realize how becoming parents has evolved our relationship from a partnership into what I now call Parentship. My husband and I have been together for 15 years, five of which as parents, so that gives me a basis for comparison.

In a partnership without kids, each person has their own life: work, hobbies, friends, and on top of that, you have your relationship. Obviously, your lives are intertwined, but it’s relatively easy (because there is time, space, and opportunity) to continue your separate activities and parts of life. As partners, you don’t necessarily have a shared common goal, other than to love each other and enjoy each other’s company.

Parentship, on the other hand, is a more complex and intertwined relationship where both individuals work together toward a common goal — raising their children. It's also different from parenting, which is directed towards the children. Parentship is the unique relationship between two people who have children together. It’s about that bond that unites them in the ongoing experience of having an ultimate guiding responsibility over other human beings.

During the interview, the interviewer commented on how it seemed like we had really found our way together in parenting. She also mentioned that it seemed to have solidified our relationship, despite the challenges we had discussed (prolonged sleepless nights, navigating reflux, allergies, and other parenting challenges).

Her comment made me reflect deeply on what has changed in us since becoming parents. The sleepless nights, constant demands, and the need to be responsible for other lives have fundamentally altered our priorities. We had to navigate these challenges together, and this shared experience created a new dynamic in our relationship, expanding on what we previously had as partners.

I noticed that the word "partnership" is almost the same as "parentship." The difference is the extra "R" in partnership, which I think stands for romance. In parentship, the focus shifts towards having one ultimate shared goal: being the parents of our kids. This led me to coin the term "parentship."

P.A.R.E.N.T. in Parentship

• Purpose – Everything we do is guided by our values.

• Accountability – Holding ourselves and others responsible for actions and growth.

• Relatedness – Cultivating a sense of connection and belonging.

• Excellence – Fostering mastery by leveraging and expanding skills.

• Negotiation – Open communication to achieve balanced compromise.

• Trust – Creating a safe environment where both feel valued and can thrive.

These elements are the backbone of a successful Parentship.

While partnership is primarily about two individuals, parentship is about becoming a team. There's a collective task at hand, and it’s crucial to support each other in this journey. This transformation requires understanding and fulfilling shared responsibilities, thereby creating a more profound connection.

Deep Dive into Parentship

Purpose has a Purpose

Purpose has always been our guiding principle. From the beginning, we’ve had conversations about our values. I remember one afternoon when I was pregnant with our first child, devouring parenting books. I wanted to talk about how we were going to raise our child. I had all kinds of ideas. My husband didn’t. He wasn’t yet at the point of thinking about parenting styles; he was picking out the right car seat and stroller. I’ll admit, this afternoon made me a bit uneasy. Did this mean we wouldn’t be aligned on how we saw our child’s future?

Fast forward to now: it didn’t mean that. It just means that I’m typically the one reading about things first. He follows in due time. He needed to hold his baby in his arms before he could consider how he wanted to raise him. Over time, we’ve had dozens of conversations about our values. We discussed them when writing the birth card poems for each of our boys, when new milestones were reached, and when we saw other parents do certain things.

Our alignment over values gives me a deeply rooted confidence that we can do this together. This alignment, in our case, has fueled all the other parts of the PARENT acronym. Knowing that we both want the same thing—and that we’re willing to adjust our values as needed—is the bedrock of our trust in each other within our Parentship. Our values will keep evolving, but we’ve developed a process to stay in tune with each other.

Accountability Needs Visibility

Accountability is essential, especially when children depend on you. In a partnership without children, accountabilities can be more flexible and vague. In a Parentship, however, a clear definition of accountability is crucial. Accountability was a struggle in the first few years. Our relationship had always been one of equals. But it felt like equality went out the window when the baby arrived, and I, as the mom, picked up the "mental load" that comes with having children.

It was hard to talk about accountability when I couldn't even describe all the things that kept my mind busy regarding the kids. His response was often, "Well, then don’t think about that, or don’t do it." Of course, the truth was in the middle. Yes, sometimes I could let go of less important things, but in other instances, he had to pick up tasks he was previously unaware of that were critical for our family. We put a lot of effort into getting to a situation where we both are accountable for an equal amount of family responsibilities.

The real shift in accountability came when he had the opportunity to take prolonged parental leave. I believe it’s hard to achieve equal accountability unless both partners have experienced what it takes to run the family and care for the children from start to finish.

Relatedness: Feeling Connected and Valued

At first, we believed we needed to cultivate our sense of connection outside the parenting setting, as if we could only nurture our relatedness away from the kids. But eventually, we realized that relatedness could be fueled through parenting together. Finding relatedness while parenting means enjoying simple moments, like being around the dinner table or playing together as a family.

However, we also noticed that for us, the romantic aspect of our relationship needs to be nurtured outside the parenting context. To fuel that, we need time alone, ideally not even at home.

Excellence: A Core Aspect of Parentship

In a partnership, excellence can be built outside the relationship context (e.g., in work or hobbies). In a Parentship, both parents must continually develop new skills to meet their children’s changing needs. As our co-parent is often the only person who sees us in our parenting interactions and knows our history, we depend on each other for feedback, growth, and learning.

We had to build confidence in each other's ability and willingness to learn. In the beginning, I didn’t think he could soothe our baby the way I thought was best, and he didn’t think I could burp the baby well. Over time, we learned to trust each other more as we navigated new situations. We’ve worked through our personal struggles about receiving feedback, especially during heated moments with the kids. It’s still a challenge, but we’re much clearer about our strengths and how to leverage them to improve together.

Negotiation Is Not Nagging

Negotiation is part of every relationship, but becoming parents brings new challenges— as resources like sleep, time, and energy become scarce overnight. As tasks multiply, friction can arise, and the ability to negotiate effectively becomes more important.

Parents need to understand their own needs and boundaries and communicate them openly to achieve balanced compromises. This is another area where resentment can creep in. Negotiation has been harder for me, as voicing my own needs and setting boundaries is still a work in progress. Initially, we’d negotiate subtly or with assumed understanding, but about 3.5 years in, we finally sat down to systematically make decisions about how we could both balance parenting and career.

Trust: Reaffirming Trust in This New Version of You

Trust is the foundation of any relationship, but in Parentship, you need to know you’re valued and safe not just for who you are but for what you do as a parent. It can be scary to admit you don’t fully trust your partner, but when you’re at your most vulnerable—sleep-deprived and overwhelmed—you need to regain trust that your partner won’t judge your mistakes. Ultimately, you need to trust that your partner will still value this new version of you.

Building trust as parents involves believing that we always have each other’s best interests at heart, even during tough times. Trust is built over time, and it’s the glue that holds Parentship together.

The beauty of the Parentship model is that you can focus on any one aspect, and it will lead you into the others. Building Parentship takes time. It’s a transitional process, and you can’t expect to be in a fully-formed Parentship the moment your baby is born. It takes time for both parents and the Parentship itself to settle into their new forms, much like the process of Matrescence.

I Needed to Understand Matrescence Before I Could Build Parentship

As I described above, in the early days of our parenting journey, we were not in a fully formed Parentship yet. We had been partners for 10 years already, but in the beginning, it felt like we were two individuals with huge dependencies on each other, trying to navigate the massive shift that started the moment our firstborn arrived in our arms. I felt bewildered by the intensity of it all and the gigantic responsibility I felt toward the little one to keep him alive. I felt like I was the only one who could do that in the early days, as I breastfed him. I was ON, always. Even when my husband took him out for a walk, my ears were in hyper-listen mode, scanning the surroundings for his cries, which would mean he needed me to eat/comfort him. I now know that this level of hypervigilance is experienced by many moms, and is part of the normal experience of early mothering (NOTE: It can be a sign of more serious postpartum conditions like postpartum depression, so ALWAYS check with a health professional if you feel this is hampering your mental health).

Although my partner was trying to support me the best he could, which he did in physical ways like making us food, carrying the baby, bathing him, etc., his experience of early parenting was different than mine, and we couldn't really understand each other very well.
This started to change the moment I began learning about Matrescence. The moment I learned that it was not just me, that it was completely normal to feel the things I felt, and that I now had words to explain them, I felt we could start doing this as a team. I also didn’t have to doubt our values anymore, which I had done during the first year or so. I doubted the way we would raise him, unsure about the values we originally wanted to adhere to. But mostly, I was doubting the values we had as parents toward each other. There were many moments where I thought, “I don’t want this ‘equal’ relationship that we always valued. I cannot see how it can work as parents.” This was me internalizing the social script that we all step into the moment we become mothers. I couldn’t see how, with the extremely limited amount of energy I had, I could keep up my part of the ‘equality equation,’ namely being a professional, working mom.

I can honestly say that learning about Matrescence, and starting to process my Matrescence experience, was the starting point of us really being able to start building our Parentship. And that’s why my mission is that every woman who becomes a mother knows about Matrescence, so she does not have to feel alone in her experience and has a map to help her navigate. Because if she can navigate, the Parentship can be built as well. Slowly, slowly.

This blog is written by Babette Lockefeer, founder of Matermorphosis. Matermorphosis the place for ambitious women navigating the Shift to working motherhood. Check out all the resources available to help you navigate this shift here.