The Secret Club of Mothers

Before becoming a mother, I was a very fitness-oriented person, let’s say. I genuinely couldn't understand how someone would say they didn't have time to go to the gym if they really wanted to because they had a child. You make the time, right? But then I became a mother and going to the gym became one of the hardest things to achieve.

But I don't really feel like whining about it. When I look at how motherhood has changed me, I find myself much more interested in the good things, what came to me as a surprise and the ways in which it has brought me closer to myself rather than further away.

There is a word for this transformation: matrescence. I came across it after becoming a mother and immediately understood. I was like, thank you, this is it. Matrescence is the physical, emotional and psychological process of becoming a mother. And I think that's what surprised me the most: motherhood wasn't simply something that happened to my life. It changed the person I am entirely.

There is nobody you can completely transfer the responsibility of motherhood to. You can ask for help, of course, but ultimately there are moments when you just have to figure it out. Sometimes there is nobody you can ask, so your best option is to follow your intuition and trust yourself. I don't think I had that kind of confidence in myself before.

I've also become less shy. You advocate for your children in the world. You speak up, you ask questions, you challenge things you might previously have let go. And that has connected me with a more instinctive, almost wild version of myself. It is easy for me to say: No, I'm going to speak.

There is also this strange thing that happens when you become a mother. You suddenly become part of this huge, private club of women around the world. It is very much an IYKYK situation.

Sometimes I see a mother with a baby and I just feel the need to approach her and ask if she needs help, for real, I do it often. Crying toddlers and the situations that look completely chaotic from the outside but, when you've been there, make perfect sense. It is not bad education, this is how children are. 

A few days ago, I saw a mother parking with her baby on her lap. My first thought wasn't judgment. It was: I've been in this exact situation. I've been there, where your baby is crying so much that you don't know what else to do, so you just hold them to stop crying. From the outside, someone might look at you and wonder what on earth you're doing, but you know.

There are so many things you simply don't understand until you become a mother, and I just feel that in conversations with other mothers, the way their face shines when we understand each other and bond and connect. And I think motherhood has made me much less judgmental. Before, I could look at another mother and wonder why she was doing something a certain way. Lol how would I dare without even being a mother?!! Now I think: maybe this is what she needs to do today. Maybe she hasn't slept or maybe this is the only thing that works.

The best part about the secret club is that you don't actually need to know another mother to understand her, you just look at her and you know exactly how she is feeling, YOU JUST KNOW. 

There is also this strange part of becoming a mother where, in a way, you become a daughter again. You start thinking about what she worried about, what she found difficult,... Imagine, she went through the same experience, I love that connection to my own mother and to all the mothers in the world, it is just so universal.

This is why I want to remember the ordinary, and I want her to see it: what our kitchen looked like when she was three, her hands, the mess, the version of me that existed at that time. 

So this is why when my daughter was born, I picked up my camera again. I wanted to photograph everything and not let any detail pass me by. It is like when you are really enjoying a film, a conversation, a moment: you just want it all to stay, to remember it exactly as it was. The way she looked, the way she slept. I have numerous photos of my daughter sleeping and I know I am not the only one. Even my mum had so many of me.

And the more I photographed, the more I started noticing her gestures, the light, what passes unnoticed. Motherhood made me look at things differently again. It is like I got a new filter for seeing things. It reconnected me with the visual and observant side of myself, and that has affected my photography far beyond family photography. I have found myself leaning into photography as a whole, becoming more curious about it and about what it means to document life in all aspects.

Ultimately, I feel more in tune with myself now. I am more intuitive, more fierce and definitely more creative, or at least wanting to create more.

That's one of the surprising things matrescence has given me: a stronger awareness of time, it is like a fourth dimension to it, or a sixth sense: how strange it is that you can be completely inside a moment and already know you'll miss it.

I did not know this before and I never knew becoming a mother could change you in such a profound way. I thought motherhood would mostly change my plans, not the way I see, feel and move through the world.