It goes to the very foundational values of our society and how we perceive and value the vital work of raising the next generation. In this ground-breaking, deeply personal investigation, acclaimed journalist and author Lucy Jones brings to light the emerging concept of 'matrescence'. It talks about the rawness of emotions that being a mother brings, the infinite joy and the helplessness, the initial isolation and the power of healing a community brings, the reshaping of a mother's brain (literally) and the way of looking at life expands and contracts at the same time. Matrescence holds the power to carry us back to ourselves, to the rituals and community from which we came; the caregivers we all hold the seed within us to become- and Lucy Jones is the person who should have written it. I have to say, I wouldn’t read this book until after you’ve become a mum—her birth stories and descriptions of early motherhood and caring for a tiny human may very well put you off of having children!

To have journeyed , and still be journeying, through this wild, raw, many coloured land of such unknowns, and to share that journey-the pain and the joy; the grief and love; the anxiety and the hope - in this way is nothing short of grace. Speaking about motherhood as anything other than a pastel-hued dream remains, for the most part, taboo. I find myself inwardly cheering at one point when another mother describes how “insipid/idealistic portrayals of motherhood made me less interested in it as a young person. Jones hints at her “conservative (childhood) home”, and I found myself wondering how our own mothers shape our experience of matrescence. For starters, brief passages that lay out the machinations of nature, and many of its horrors, sit around its chapters.As it deepens our understanding of matrescence, it raises vital questions about motherhood and femininity; interdependence and individual identity; as well as about our relationships with each other and the living world. Parenting - especially motherhood - and care in general are so underrated and misunderstood socially that those on the outside are not able to see their immense value and all the sacrifices they require, and those within feel like they are failing if they don't revel in all aspects of parenthood or care or struggle at times. Fast forward ten years after graduation and having children is leading to huge numbers of women suffering PPD as they go through matrescence essentially alone after millennia of our ancestors doing it communally and with what we would see now as extensive familial support. The only thing that didn’t make sense to me was the undertone of “I had no idea that motherhood was difficult!

Full of the wonders of sharing the natural world with young minds, it's a manual for finding awe in the cracks of the pavement and magic on a stroll around the block. You may well find yourself raging at the various health professionals depicted: the midwife who cries at one woman’s bedside because she so wanted her to breastfeed, the health visitor who tells Jones “baby needs mummy” when she has the temerity to ask if she can let the baby cry for 30 seconds before picking her up, to see if she self-settles.She raises very valid questions on how our society, the corporate world, our 'social media' - makes motherhood a harder task than it already is.

By the time I'd read the sixth, I was wanting to break prisoners out of cells and onto the mossy moors. Lucy Jones has also brought a very interesting theory - feminism has helped us break the glass ceiling at work, but overall motherhood remains bereft, and till date all data supports that the mother continues to be the more primary caregiver - In addition to having equal load of work in the office as males.What I found instead was a boundary-pushing book that is altogether tricksier, more complex and creative, transcending even the “part-memoir, part-critical analysis” genre that has become such a commonplace format for female authors in recent years. I thought it was boring when it’s one of the most extreme socio-political experiences I have ever been through. Motherhood has immense physical and emotional ramifications, and it is appalling that it does not get discussed as much as it should be.

The fox has for centuries been held as the incarnation of such unlovely traits as deviousness, cunning and cruelty. Her fascinating exploration of the new science of our connection to the natural world emphasises the untold psychological cost of environmental degradation and climate catastrophe.In meticulous detail, Jones quests to bring us an impressive array of answers to the question of whether “nature connection” has a tangible effect on our minds, and how, and why? How can this be, Lucy Jones asks, when it is “a transition that involves a whole spectrum of emotional and existential ruptures”? There’s the medical side, but also the equally important social implications: new mothers need so much more practical and mental health support, and their unpaid care work must be properly valued by society.