Josh van Cuylenburg

You can have kids.

You can work.

You can do all these things.

And I can't help but thinking that maybe a reluctance to acknowledge matrescence is a fear that it's an acknowledgement that

That things push against this idea that you can have it all, certainly for a period of time.

Maybe it just feels like there's a potential clash there that people don't want to acknowledge or talk about because it feels like it could ruin everything.

progress in women being able to have more independence over their bodies, over their lives, over their finances, over the way that they want to live.

Well, yeah, and I think it kind of sets, well, to not acknowledge matrescence sets you up for failure.

Because if it's not matrescence, then it's my inability to have it all.

I'm not able to do what I'm supposed to be able to do here.

A few more years.

A few more years.

Like I guess you've mentioned that people don't want to show up back to work sometimes in the same way that they wanted to previously.

And I think it would be easy for a workplace to see that as a challenge and see that as a negative.

Yeah.

But also many of the ways you've been describing the way the brain changes in matrescence, I assume could be also viewed as an asset for a workplace.

How do companies, after acknowledging that matrescence is a thing, how do companies better facilitate this transition for women to come back into work?

Yeah.

Yeah, and I also think potentially the way I frame the question is a bit of an impossible one to answer because it's different in every single situation, but at least if companies and society has a proper understanding of matrescence, that's the starting point.

It's such a good point because for a lot of women, it's like, yeah, I'd love to have the time to go through my matricence, but I can't afford it.