I have met in my life many women, rich in talents, intense, funny … without children-some because “they didn’t come,” some because “she didn’t want any,” some because “she didn’t find the right man,” some because “it was never the time,” some because …. “why?
But does there have to be a why?
And I began as always to ask myself so many questions.
Around motherhood, or rather the desire for motherhood, revolve a world of words, values, beliefs, habits, ideas, “shoulds” or “should nots,” right or wrong.
Think for example : of the “right age”-the bogeyman for every woman-but what will be the right age? Because if you have child too young “you are too young to be a mom,” if you have child too old “eh poor child will have an old mom” …
so it seems there is also the right age for having children !!!
When 30-year-old girls come to me for counseling and say, “I’m 30 years old now if I don’t hurry up then it’s too late,” I feel the wall of social conditioning that we’ve all, if only for a moment, run up against.
Catchphrases, said by the neighbor, a joke from the gynecologist, the aunt saying “so? what are you waiting for? when are you going to make us a baby?”
So, those sentences like that, said to say….as they would say to the baker “give me a kilo of bread” … without having the slightest idea that that sentence thrown in there can come as a stab to those women who are struggling to find their place in the world, to understand what they really want, to understand if they really have the man they desire and love next to them, who are wondering if life is really just family and children or can it be something else.
Thus a thousand fears take shape related to who we are, what plans we have, our ability to procreate, to meet the social standards of woman, worker, wife and mother. But this is also the time to feel that perhaps motherhood is not what we want, that this unseeked (or sought but not coming) child is not really what we want, at least at that moment!
Therefore, I would like to explore in Red Tent this intimate and delicate area,convinced that the theme of motherhood, even if only for a second, has touched each of us.
Where does this desire for motherhood come from? Whose is it? Does the biological clock exist? What makes us say “no” to a possible pregnancy? How many and what other “children” can we give birth to?
This and much more will be discussed on Feb. 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the cozy Le Maree center on Corso Torino 9/2 corner of Smyrna Street.
info and reservations: info@francescadalessandro.net
