Maddie Brosnan, Kaitiaki Māmā Te Whare Pora Rongoā Clinic

10/10/2026

Everyone sees the anger, nobody counts the load sitting underneath it
The appointments, the kai, the school forms, who needs what and when
All of it done on broken sleep, in a body that is still changing, often with no whānau close enough to hand any of it to

Then one small thing goes wrong, it all comes out, and she is the one left feeling ashamed

I have worked alongside māmā for over 15 years and I have been a māmā twice, 21 years apart
I have not yet met one who was angry for no reason.
I see them daily in my Rongoā clini in my 1.1 sessions and as a Doula
Our tūpuna raised tamariki inside a whānau, the load was shared by many hands
Now it lands on one person and she is expected to carry it quietly
Matrescence, the becoming of a mother, is a huge shift for the body, the brain and the identity, and nobody prepares her for any of it

On Tuesday 20 October I am running a free online class on the mother load, rage and matrescence
We will go through where the anger comes from, what is happening in your nervous system when it rises, and what to do with it instead of swallowing it or letting it go off at the people you love
I will not hand you a list of things to fix about yourself, because the load was never yours alone

1:30pm NZT, and everyone who registers gets the recording

Link in here to register
https://maddiebrosnan.myflodesk.com/n8j1rlyl8s

Send this to the māmā who needs to know it was never just her

09/10/2026

05/10/2026

Who taught you that your job is coping?

Helping is a word for a guest. When the dishes, the nappies and the 3am wake ups count as help, you stay the one who is responsible, and they get a gold star for turning up

That is one of those elements of how the mother load gets built The invisible load, the mental load, the rage. Not in one big moment, but in thousands of small ones, where you are the manager and they are the assistant.

And a lot of what hits in postpartum is not new.
It is years of conditioning. Be a good girl. Be grateful. Be fine. Do it quietly
Then a pēpi arrives and it all cracks open, and we call it a breakdown or hormones or a bad week Hardly anyone asks who taught you this, or who has been benefiting from it

Rage is what a body does when it has carried too much for too long and nobody has named it

On Tuesday 20 October I'm hosting an online event on mother load, anger, rage and matrescence
We are going to pull apart where it comes from, who it serves, and what changes when the load is shared properly and not just helped with
The link is in my bio

Now tell me... what in your whare gets called "helping" that shouldn't be?
And send this to your partner See what they say

rongoāmāorikaitiakimama māmā whānau postpartumsupport # MatrescenceAotearoa

04/10/2026

Our tūpuna, our ancestors, were never meant to carry this much silence
Colonisation taught us to be quiet, be good, be small and be grateful
It pulled us away from our intuition, our birthing ways, our whānau (family) and our knowing
Then good girl conditioning did the rest
In my rongoā clinic and in my mahi with māmā in matrescence and postpartum, I see the same thread over and over
Swallowed anger
Years of saying yes when the body said no
Putting everyone else first and calling it love
Later on down the line it often shows up as autoimmune
I'm not saying that's the only cause, I'm saying what I see
And this is the part we don't talk about enough
Even with all the nervous system and embodiment work out there, rewiring starts at baseline
What are you feeding your body?
A nervous system that's always searching for safety can't settle if it isn't nourished with real food and minerals
You can do all the breathwork you want, but a body that isn't nourished keeps chasing or running from a primal state
Most of the women I sit with are literally starving
Then matrescence arrives and cracks the good girl wide open
The mother load lands, the anger rises, and most of us were never taught what to do with it
This is the missing piece I look at every time I support a mother
Anger isn't the problem, it's information, and often it's a boundary finding its voice
You are not broken
You inherited a lot, and you get to set some of it down
On Tuesday 20 October I'm hosting an online class on the mother load, anger, rage and matrescence
Link is in my bio

tupunaparenting kaitiakimama goodgirlconditioning teaomaori whakapapa postpartumhealing mātauranga

02/10/2026

To the māmā doing this again 21 years later... yes that was me.
18yrs old as first time Māmā amd then 39yrs old when I choose to embark on that Rite Of Passage again.

21 yrs between my first born and the next one.
Huge gap, different seasons, and decades!

What Id tell her

You're not starting over. You're coming back with everything your body already knows.

The 18-year-old in you is still in the room. She deserves to be mothered this time too.

You were judged for being young. Now you might be judged for being "too old." Neither was ever the truth.

This time you get to ask for what you didn't know you could ask for.

Your first postpartum shaped you. Your second gets to heal you.

You have 21 years of wisdom and a body that remembers. Trust both.

Grieve the 18-year-old who did it alone. Then hold her through this one.

Same whare tangata. A completely different woman carrying it.

You were enough then. You are enough now.

"Kia ora I'm Maddie Māmā at 18 and again at 39, and a Rongoā practitioner walking with mothers through postpartum & Matrescence f this was your story too, send it to a māmā who needs it, and follow along ."

01/10/2026

Pēpi arrives and the whole world turns toward them. The gifts, the visits, the "how's the little one?" And somewhere in the middle of it, the māmā is sitting in the dark at 3am, bleeding, leaking, aching, and wondering why nobody has asked how she is
Because she was born that day too
A new māmā is born the moment her pēpi isShe's learning a whole new body, a new heart, a new identity, and she's doing it on no sleep. We live in a baby-obsessed world that forgets the one keeping everyone alive

So before you buy another onesie, ask what would actually hold her

🤍 1. A pot of soup left at the door. Don't stay. Don't ask.
🤍 2. A freezer meal roster with her friends and whānau
🤍 3. Warm cooked kai she can eat with one hand
🤍 4. A big water bottle with a straw
🤍 5. Herbal teas for feeding māmā
🤍 6. A booked mirimiri session, just for her tinana
🤍 7. A rongoā visit
🤍 8. A few hours with a postpartum doula
🤍 9. A herbal sitz bath blend
🤍 10. Magnesium body balm
🤍 11. Soft high-waisted bottoms and a button-up top
🤍 12. Warm socks and a robe
🤍 13. A hot water bottle or heat pack
🤍 14. A phone charger long enough to reach the couch at 3am
🤍 15. A good pillow for feeding
🤍 16. Her dishes done and the washing folded
🤍 17. A grocery run so she doesn't have to think about it
🤍 18. An hour with her older tamariki so she can breathe
🤍 19. Your ears for her birth story, with no fixing and no comparing
🤍 20. A text that says "no need to reply"
Our tupuna never raised tamariki alone. The village held the māmā so the māmā could hold the pēpi Somewhere along the way we forgot that
Let's remember it

Feed her. Rest her. Witness her.

30/09/2026

If I gave a f**k about these comments 👆
Every one of these has landed in my DMs or under my posts
It's never about the mahi, it's my face, my relationship status, who signed my piece of paper
"Who certified you?" "Who says you can talk about that?"
Who gets to decide what counts as knowledge? Mostly clinical psychology and Western frameworks, and everything outside them gets called "outside your scope"
Meanwhile our people have held birth, grief, rage and spiritual awakening for generations with no licence board involved
Scope of practice matters and referring on has its place
But when so many topics stay off the table because they feel too big, too risky or too far outside the training, mothers are the ones left in the gap
They think something is wrong with them
They think what they're feeling isn't normal
When really it's just never been talked about
So I talk about it
Anger and rage
Spiritual awakening
Matrescence as a spiritual journey
Somatics as ancestral practice that was stolen and colonised
Postpartum psychosis, staying with her while the right support is brought in
And no, my face isn't fake, this is what I was born with
My mahi doesn't live in my forehead, it lives in my whakapapa, 15+ years with māmā and becoming a mother twice, 21 years apart
If it sets something off in you, get curious about that

But thanks for the DMs and comments, every one pushes this mahi further into the algorithm and you're watching and reading it all
Clearly something in here is calling you 😉
Kāore au e noho puku, I won't be silent 🔥

28/09/2026

If it was urgent enough for a traffic light system, it's urgent enough for our mothers.

Not long ago, Aotearoa passed the law behind a nationwide traffic light system in a single day, one that set the rules for who could walk into a café, a gym or a hairdresser. Our mothers are being asked to wait until 2029.
A three-day postnatal stay has just passed into law here. Up from 48 hours, and a good step. But it won't be fully available until July 2029, and a mother's healing doesn't stop when she leaves the ward. It runs for weeks and months, mostly at home, and that's where so many māmā are left without enough support.

The leading cause of maternal death in Aotearoa is mental health related, and wāhine Māori carry the heaviest load. Three more years is too long.
So if you're hapū right now, don't wait for the system. Postpartum support is preventative, which means it needs to be in place before baby arrives. Line up your village. Kai in the freezer. Someone to hold baby so you can sleep. People who ask how you are. A plan for the hard days before they arrive.

Build it in your own four walls and within your whakapapa
Tag a māmā who needs to see this.