Entertainment news and discussion on TalkFuse.
Nita Strauss on motherhood, becoming a new person, and the long road back to work
Guitarist Nita Strauss describes how becoming a mother has changed her sense of identity and made returning to work more complicated than she expected. Her experience highlights the gap between assumptions that mothers will resume their former lives and the reality of adapting to a new stage of life.
After taking maternity leave from Alice Cooper’s band, Strauss returned for a halftime performance at a Las Vegas Raiders game while nursing her baby, Max. She also plays for the LA Rams and has been preparing to tour with her baby in tow. Strauss says postpartum life has been harder than anticipated and uses the term “matrescence” for the transition into motherhood, which she says deserves more open discussion.
In short
- Nita Strauss says motherhood has fundamentally changed her.
- She returned to performing while nursing her baby.
- She wants the transition into motherhood discussed more openly.
Explained simply
Nita Strauss is a guitarist who performs with Alice Cooper’s band and has also played at major American football games. Becoming a parent can bring changes to a person’s routines, relationships and sense of self, alongside the practical demands of caring for a baby.
The transition into motherhood is sometimes called matrescence. The term describes the physical and emotional adjustments that can accompany becoming a mother, and is used to discuss an experience that people may find difficult even when they are happy to have a child.
For musicians, returning to work after having a baby can involve travel, performances and arranging care while away. Strauss’s experience sits within a wider conversation about how work and identity change for parents after a child arrives.