New Parenthood: Rebuilding

The Rebuilding stage of new parenthood is when the person you are becoming, rather than the person you were before, comes into clearer focus. The second year of parenthood is different from the first in ways that matter: there is more sleep, more stability, more of an internal life. The child is a person with a personality and a presence that is distinct rather than overwhelming. And the parent has been changed in ways that are becoming integrated rather than merely happening.

For many parents, this stage involves a conscious renegotiation of identity. The matrescence process, which has been underway since the beginning, arrives at a point where it can be more deliberately engaged with. Who am I as a parent? Who am I outside of being a parent? What does a life that holds both of those identities look like? These are not abstract questions at this stage. They are questions being answered through daily decisions and small choices.

People at the Rebuilding stage of new parenthood often describe something that is hard to find in earlier stages: a sense that they are more themselves rather than less. Not the person they were before the baby, but a person who contains both the pre-parenthood self and the parent identity. That integration is not complete at this stage, but it is underway in a way that it was not before.