CINZIA: «My name is Cinzia, we are in Cagliari, facing the sea to talk about children. I have many children, those of my friends and my brother’s daughter. I have never had children.
Honestly, I am very sorry about this because I’ve always desired to have at least one child, but let’s say that nature chose for me.
I tried very hard to fight it but there was no way, she won, not because of my paraplegia which is considered to be the reason to be childless, but because of my health as my body rejected it, through several problems and medical conditions and so it was not possible. When the time was ideal, even according to the doctor, but I did not have the right partner to have a baby with, or I didn’t have one at all. As the years went by, the hope of having this child became more and more distant. Until I reached an age where it would be impossible anyway.
Now I am 44 years old, and although there are women who can have children at 44, my medical situation, let’s say, prevented me to do it before and now it is absolutely impossible: it was nature’s choice. Now I feel more relieved about it, in the past it was painful for me. There was a moment in my life, which was probably the most painful, when a close friend of mine had a baby girl, and I grew very fond of her, and who I love very much, because she was the first child to be so close to me, and she gave me many joys. Then came my brother’s daughter and this girl’s little sister, they were an additional joy for me but she was the first child and I showered a lot of joy on her but also a lot of experience of real contact with a child that I really loved. And this perhaps eased, I’m sure it eased a lot this yearning.
I strongly believe in maternal desire, I believe in nature, in nature’s gift to women, which is the ability to procreate. And so for me I really missed not being able to achieve this natural project, a sense of lack in addition to other limitations, so perhaps it was more painful compared to other women. Now that I’ve come to terms with nature, and I have accepted that she won, I feel much better about it. Perhaps because I am 44 years old therefore from now on nature wouldn’t allowe me to procreate anyway, I got to the point where I accepted it. I can no longer hope for the years ahead, so it doesn’t bother me much, let’s go with that.
My experience with motherhood has been rather complicated, because the relationship with my mother has been very…. How shall I put it? Hot-blooded. We are both very temperamental, even with violent outbursts, and we always had very stormy confrontations.
From a human point of view, my growing up was always emotionally on the edge, hence my relation with motherhood, is kind of confrontational, because this woman taught me that you love your children more than anything else, but she also gave me a certain sense of fear towards motherhood, which I felt as the years went by. I felt it when I reflected on the difficulties I might have had with a baby. I realized that I wanted a child so much, but I also wanted a partner, because of my mobility problems it would have been very hard for me. I believe that regardless of my paraplegia, I would have had this fear anyway. Probably because of this sense of motherhood, which is very strong, but at the same time it reminds me of the conflict. This maternal instinct which is so innate, and so deep-rooted, and like all visceral things, it gives you very strong emotions, something that you like to feel but it hurts when you experience it. This is how I lived my sense of motherhood, I wanted it very much, I would have loved to experience it, but I always saw the difficulties I would have had without a partner. This is one of the reasons why I did not have children, because in reality you can always have a child, because you can easily find a man. But you have to see if that is the right choice for you, for me it was not the right choice, I would have definitely wanted that, but with someone. Someone to share motherhood with, and also the taking care of a child, while growing up, sharing responsibilities and education. Bringing up this child with a mother and a father, which I consider very important.
When I think about these fears in relation to motherhood, those linked to mobility, to taking care of a child alone, sometimes when I lose control of my thoughts, I think that nature made the choice for me, meaning that it saved me from this hardship. It’s a thought that I hate to think and when it comes to me, I drive it away, because I believe that the body, the health of the body, depends a lot on our thoughts, and so I’m afraid that I caused this problem, that I have caused my illnesses that prevented me from having children. I push away these thoughts, because the idea of having lost such a great joy because of a fear that I never wanted to acknowledge, that I have always kept hidden, this frightens me a little. I don’t like to think that’s my fault, it is something I don’t want to think. Although sometimes I do I think that maybe, unconsciously, somehow, I did not want it. True, I think about it.
But… When you told me about this project, I thought, “but I didn’t choose not to have children”. And maybe for the first time I fully acknowledged this thought about nature, that nature chose for me, and then soon after I thought that maybe I was involved in this choice. I took stock of the situation, maybe it made me do it, because I thought about it many times but always thinking about the problems faced in that moment. I never wanted to draw conclusions, maybe I drew them in that very moment.
It’s true, this problem is never discussed, people never talk about the conscious choice to have no children. It’s much nicer to say you can’t have children, rather than saying you don’t want children. This because motherhood is a strong innate, female human characteristic, and maybe this is not my case as I didn’t knowingly chose not to have them. But I realize that for many people I can be more accepted when I say that I couldn’t have them, partly because of nature, and partly because I helped nature, which is irrelevant for many, compared to those who say they don’t want them because they think they wouldn’t cope, or for a poor sense of motherhood.
My experience teaches me one thing, as much as I believe, as my father used to say, that a child is never a misfortune, I think that sometimes you have to listen to your sense of motherhood,
or non-motherhood. Children have the right to grow up in a caring environment, where they can feel loved. Too often I witnessed some situations in which a poor sense of motherhood has led to unhappy lives and suffering pepole. So I say that it is true, a child is never a misfortune, but listening to the lack of a maternal instinct, is an enormous gift that can be given to an unborn child, saving him or her from a very unhappy life. This is what I really think.It’s not necessary to be mothers at all costs. That much is true.»

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