Following the screening of the film “Lunàdigas, or concerning childfree women”, a group of women in Latina gathers in the form of a circle to discuss together, giving life to a safe space where views can be exchanged, and experiences can be shared, through the many testimonies about being daughters, mothers, non-mothers, women.

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TATIANA: «All right, thank you. Lunàdigas came to Latina in September, invited by Primo Contatto Collective, because through Lavinia Bianchi, who is a feminist pedagogist, I always repeat this thing as I find it beautiful, they organized this first event in the gardens of the City Hall. Those of us who were there that night saw that, also afterwards, they interviewed women meeting in Florence and in other cities at the Women’s Dinner, and so of course, driven by enthusiasm, we said: “Let’s propose it in Latina as well.”
In anticipation of this first dinner, we contacted the women of the Florence Women’s Dinner who, very enthusiasts themselves, because I think enthusiasm is a very feminine thing. They invited us to go… and visit them, to participate ourselves. They have been meeting every last Friday of the month for the last 15 years, and they have never missed a meeting.»

DANIELA: «My name is Daniela and I am 58 years old, I am not married, I am no longer married, I have a daughter.
For many years I worked as a graphic designer, then I started working in my family’s company, which is an industrial supply company in the pharmaceutical field, and now we decided to sell.
So at fifty-eight years old, I will find myself…»
VOICE OFF: «…a rich heiress.»
DANIELA: «Well, a rich heiress maybe is a bit too much, but someone who doesn’t have, let’s say, an economic urgency. I love working, though, so I’ll have to come up with something. So, let’s say I’m facing this somewhat destabilizing moment.
Then, I don’t know, I was invited by Patrizia, but I’m a curious person, I like being around others, I like meeting new people, I like sharing my experiences, I like women and so I came. In what sense do you like women? Let’s say, female psychology, being a woman, I don’t know how to explain it, in this sense. I like being with women, I like it very much. So nothing, I came here, ready for a new experience.»

PATRIZIA: «I’m Patrizia, I’m 61 years old… »
VOCE OFF: «Tell us what’s your secret.»
ALTRA VOCE OFF: «I was thinking the same thing.»
PATRIZIA: «Chocolates, I’ve already had three. Sweets save lives. I don’t have children, except for some very childish friends who call me sometimes.
I’m a documentary filmmaker, I do a lot of social work, and I’m also a director of communication tools, like promotional and commercials videos. I lived in Latina until ’91, or ’93 and now I live in Rome and I’m here because, I had to bring Daniela,I’m friends with Tatiana and I had no idea what it was about, so I’m curious and I’m here.»

STEFANIA: «My name is Stefania, everyone has said their age, so I am 63, I retired on the 1st of July. For a lifetime, I worked as a social worker, I always took care of others, perfectly fitting the stereotype of the caring woman. Deep down, I always searched for myself, even in my relationship with users, I realized this later by writing about everything I was experiencing. What can I say? In my life I have always lived in between two cultures, a foreign dad, mom from Rome. I encountered many obstacles and difficulties to find an identity that would include everything. Surely, a very important figure was my Croatian grandmother who raised me most of the time. So, I have always… this woman figure has always been important for me.
I have four children, three daughters and a boy. So, one may wonder why I am here, I know Tatiana… Well the Women’s Dinner, the Women’s Collective, I could not miss it.
For me it has always represented, precisely starting from my grandmother, from early childhood, my whole life, the relationship with my daughters, which is something very important and meaningful.
I think we all search to find our identity and to understand who we are, and I have to say that, as a mirror, women are very important. Well, I am very happy to be here to share anything with you. I strongly believe that having children is not what makes a woman.
I had my first child when I was 30, I didn’t want them before, instead I wanted them afterwards, maybe a beautiful moment in my life, I met the right person to have children with, they are a great responsibility. I have always separated my being a woman and a mother, I mean, it has never merged into one, I mean, into a totalizing confusion, it’s not like that. I always tried to be true to myself, my choices, my desires, my things.
At 40, I enrolled at university, I started to study even with children, teaching them to respect the choices that people make, I have always respected them, they have respected me very much, and we keep on having this nice relationship. I feel lucky about that, however I always thought that one should become a mother after a long journey of self-discovery, and you don’t necessarily have to. If you get there, fine, if not, it’s fine too.»

MARZIA: «I am here tonight, like Stefania, because the idea of the Women’s dinner really appealed to me. In fact, when Ilaria told us about it, the enthusiasm was quite strong. Additionally, I liked tonight’s topic: I am a mother, have two daughters, but they are not enough. Not because I want more, mind you, they are more than enough! But they’re not enough, as they don’t make me feel fulfilled but you can’t say that, because if you say it out aloud, you’re a bad mother,or you don’t respect people who can’t have children, so you can’t say they’re not your everything.
However, I have a good relationship with my daughters, I have two girls too, so it was very overwhelming to learn that…
When I learned that I was expecting the first baby girl, I panicked a bit, I felt a greater responsibility. Not only because I was having children, but because it was a girl. So, while I was pregnant with my first child I read “What are little girls made of”, and I was shocked.
So, the relationship that I try to have with them is kind of… I get very emotional about it… It’s like Stefania said, in the sense it’s a relationship respecting other people’s choices.
I hated breastfeeding, I fiercely defended the bridal bed… I always wanted to separate my being mother from my being a person, from being a wife. Yet, this is something you can’t always say. I mean, it’s like once you become a mother, you are just that. So, the idea of sharing that with a group of women who I guess are open-minded enough to be able to do that.
Currently, I find myself hanging out mostly with moms, but mostly moms I don’t have much in common with. Apart from Ilaria, but because I don’t think of you as me… Because you… Well, Ilaria and I wanted Free Annamaria T-shirts, that is Annamaria Franzoni. At some point we even thought she might have been somewhat right. So…»
ILARIA: «Anyway, we are not murderers.»
MARZIA: «No, for goodness sake. When I was watching the movie Lunàdigas with my daughters my youngest who is nine, said: “Mom please don’t watch these things that you feel like abandoning us”. At the end of the movie I thought: “Maybe, I messed it up”. And nothing, that’s it.»

SERENA: «To make you understand where I’m coming from, when this afternoon I told my mom what I was going to do tonight, she said: “You should have gone to a men’s dinner.”
Since I… Since I’m single with no children, so let’s say, instead of going to a dinner with only women, you should go to the men’s dinner so maybe it’s the right time.
So, let’s say my mom raised me in the old-fashioned way. She is from the South, and dreamed for us to be the typical daughter. It’s two of us, two daughters, both feeling fulfilled, but in her eyes realization also comes through having a partner, a husband and children. And this is not happening yet, neither on my part, nor on my sister’s.
So, I’ve always tried to fight a little against this ideal by actually nourishing myself with many other things. So, I find myself fighting every day, I have the enemy inside the house.
Actually, I don’t think I have yet my own personal position on this topic, because to be honest, I love children very much. However I don’t know if I love other people’s or I would love my own as well, because I am really fascinated by the world of children. In short, I still have to reflect on this, and I liked the idea to be able to do it together with other people, as well as having the opportunity to create also a network that could also allow us to do much more together. So thank you.»

FEDERICA: «I am Federica, today I decided to celebrate my birthday with you because I am turning 46. I am happy to be here with you and especially to listen.
I am a psychologist, but I actually work as an educator in schools, both middle and elementary, which was my personal choice, because over the years, I have had many work experiences, and this is what I enjoy doing. I find a great fulfillment in what I do.
In terms of my personal path, I have undergone a great metamorphosis over the years. For ten years I tried to have children, it was not my choice not to have children, but it was nature’s choice, in the end. But then over time this turned into the realization that maybe it was for the best.
I suffered a lot about it, and then instead I acquired a new awareness, and said: “Okay, maybe it was for the best”. When people often ask me why, even sometimes children I work with, who ask, “Teacher, how many children do you have?” I say, “I don’t. You are all my children, because I have all of you, however the nice thing is that when I go home, I send you back to your parents.
During the whole day you are with me, however, then I come home and I enjoy my solitude, my freedom to do what I like”. There was this profound transformation.
Obviously, it took time, I worked a lot on it, I really did a lot of work on myself, on this thing. But now I have acquired a new awareness and maybe for me it was better this way, because now I’m happy with what I have, how I am and what it is…
Of the affections that I have, which are a lot, from profound friendships to my family. I am really fulfilled by what I have, by my work that truly fulfills me.
Nothing, I thank you because listening to experiences, diversity, choices, enriches me and always gives me something. Thank you.»

MANUELA: «My name is Manuela, I’m 33 years old, I’m a social worker and work in two social-health facilities. I am very happy with this space because, by engaging with the other in general, but especially with women I have always recognized, discovered, questioned myself, it has always made me feel well suited, both in our differences as well as in what we have in common.
I don’t have children and I think I don’t want any. I have a lot of cats. But it’s always been a subject that I’ve never felt I could discuss within my family, even outside, even with friends, because it’s always something, I’ve always felt it as something that the others were uncomfortable with. I’ve always felt a little inadequate in this choice. So Lunàdigas made me feel less alone, and what I would like is this space but also bigger spaces to be able to talk about it freely. That’s all.»

IRIDE: «I am Iride. I don’t have children and I am also 63 years old, so now I am at a point in my life where this desire has passed. I am here because, listening to some of you I have seen myself, I found myself a little in all of you, let’s say. Because I am a curious person, a person who is making a change in her life precisely because I have to find… I have retired and have to find other things to do. I have always been a very busy person, and so nothing better than trying to find myself, trying to discard, to get over all the things in life that have been with me, and that I don’t need anymore, things that I did although I didn’t like them, and so on. Instead of finding things that in life I moved away from… Here, one of those things was exactly female friendships, that is, a female world that for so many years… When I was younger this world existed, made of a network, of exchanges, whether positive and negatives, but then I had completely lost it. I thought it no longer existed.
So, when I came here last time I said to myself: “Let’s reconnect with something I had left in the past, but not because I was not interested, but because I had other… Times were different then, I had other things on my mind, now I have the time to resume where I left off. And I’m very curious to get to know this new female world that lives, thinks, and tries to build a network that is not just for friendship. Because I always had both female and male friends, I mean, I have not been isolated in my world, my work, my family, in my duties or whatever, however I had lost this thing. So, my curiosity, my desire to see, to exchange, and get to know something that I clearly miss. So I came here to see. I am here just as an observer still, sorry. I’m telling you because… then when I decide something I am much more intrusive.»

ROBERTA: «I am a social worker, I have two grown up children, one in Africa and one in Bologna. Yes, your profession helps and so on, but I have always believed that first of all there is the need to realize ourselves.
I did desire motherhood, I looked for it and I am glad that I had these two children, but for example, I studied only after I got married, and I took my teaching diploma after I got married, with my two children looking for me everywhere. Because I was convinced that personal self-determination also allowed me to be a better mother and I care to say that. I like to discuss with others, when I came here to see the video I brought my daughter, who when we came out said: “is there something you need to tell me, mom? I didn’t understand why you brought me here.”»
VOCE OFF: «How old is she?»
ROBERTA: «Twenty-two.»
VOCE OFF: «Was I adopted?»
ROBERTA: «And I told her: “No, because I think that also motherhood has to be a conscious choice. So, it’s nice for you to see that there are different views and to be aware that you can make your choices… not out of preconceptions but a deliberate choice.” “Ah.” When I heard about this meeting, these people and so on, I was very interested, and I am happy because finally something is moving in Latina. I’m so happy about that. I was very happy to come here, filled with curiosity and the desire to get involved. Thank you all.»

STEFANIA: «Hi everyone, I am Stefania, I am 35 years old, I have always lived here in Latina, apart from the first years of university when I lived in Rome.
Right now I’m studying and working, because I stopped my university course for years due to a series of personal and health reasons. Finally I decided to start studying again and now I have two exams left, I have to do my dissertation. So, let’s see how this story will end. I don’t have children and I’ve been with my partner for 15 years though, we’ve been living together for 13. But motherhood and having children for me have always been a peculiar matter in my life. I’m an only child and I’ve grown up among adults, I’ve always been the youngest in the family so I really couldn’t stand children, when I saw them coming up to me I was petrified. But when I was 19 years old I started tutoring, I’ve been tutoring for a lifetime, for 15 years, and I got into the world of children and I fell in love. I get emotional because they’ve all been a little like brothers to me. It has been wonderful let’s say to do this work. It helped me through a time when I was down and… And well, let’s say I came into the world of kids in this way. However, I never felt that maternal instinct, I’ve transferred it onto my pupils, let’s call them like this, but thinking of having my own children, well, it’s not something that makes me feel comfortable. Maybe because I’m not in a period of my life where I feel to say: “I’m feel good, I can be a mother.” No, I’m already stressed out, imagine if I had a kid. I mean, maybe that’s the problem, but let’s say I still see motherhood as a not necessarily. I don’t know, if they come fine, if not, fine too. It may not be the right time to think about that. But in short I am glad to hear everyone’s stories, because everyone has their own personal story that led them to make choices, some by chance, some more personal. So, I thank you for this space and the opportunity to share with you. Thank you.»

ILARIA: «I am proudly Roman and Latina has adopted me now for about 20 years. When I arrived, I was still young, full of hopes, I thought I would find a young, beautiful, rich city, instead unfortunately one disappointment after the other!»
VOICE OFF: «You also live in San Donato, though.»
ILARIA: «Yes I live in the middle of nowhere. You are right, in the middle of nowhere… Yes, true, I do live in the middle of nowhere but it was my choice to move from the city to the country. I did not want to be a mother. I never thought about children, they were not even in my more remote plans.
However, this because all my friends with children were all terribly boring, and I was like: “But I’m too cool to just be a mom, I mean no.” Then luckily another friend of mine had kids and she’s a super cool mom, so I said: “See, then you can do it, and kids. Okay, if I’ll have kids I want to be like that.” So, I soon made it clear with the man who later became my husband. “I will be a mother, but I want to keep being cool.” So I always kept… No guys, I’m telling you. They liked it. Come on, this let’s say it’s a safe community, we can talk freely.
Come on, don’t make me lose track, damn it. And so this summer I felt the urge, I wanted something different, that would stimulate my curiosity.
By chance I saw the Lunàdigas event, Women Without Children event, I said: “What is this stuff about? In Latina! Whatever, let’s go listen.” So alone, as I didn’t tell you. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I went alone and there I had a brainwave because I said: “See, there are cool women in Latina, I didn’t know that.” And so when she stood up, when Tatiana stood up, she said: “We must do the Women’s dinner!” On the other side I said: “I’m coming too!” Do you remember? That’ how we met. – We got to know each other. From then on, it was an escalation, because I said: “Well, I know some, because I don’t know, it is an association of moms of course, but cool moms, not boring ones and so I said: “My community is made mostly by moms, but I would like to go beyond that.” And so with Tatiana we said: “Come on, let’s put the pieces together.” Which is what I like to do, after all. “Let’s call the women cool moms of Latina and let’s make our voices heard.”»
VOICE OFF: «What is the definition of a cool mom? I would like to understand that.»
ILARIA: «For cool mom, at least how I intend it, is the one that when you ask her how she is doing, doesn’t say: “I’ve been picking up baby food, I’ve been wiping butts, I’ve been cleaning up, I’ve been ironing…” No, this is boring as hell. The cool mom is the one who says: “Well, look when are we going out for a drink? Let’s go to the movies. How about going shopping?” I like those. When you meet you can talk about various things.»
DANIELA: «It’s a little bit…»
ILARIA: «For me, then each one has her own… Each will decline it as they wish. Someone you can talk to freely, and not necessarily about poops and diapers. Then each one interprets it as they wish. That’s what it is for me.»

NICOLETTA: «It is clear that I am Nicoletta. I am 43 years old. I am from Latina, and…I’m anxious. I’ve always been anxious. Initially I didn’t know why I was here. I mean, Serena posted a series of things including this thing about Lunàdigas. I immediately went to check what Lunàdigas was about, and I really had a flash of inspiration, so I said: “Finally we’re talking about women choosing another role in society. That is to carve out a… To be there as an entity.” And then I got here, always a little bit polite, always a little bit rigid, and I realized why I’m here, because you are really liberating. You are truly liberating, I mean Marzia is totally liberating. Though I have to say… It’s not that. I am a mother. However, I must say that for a long time I always forgot to introduce myself as a mother, because it was not my priority and because it was not a destructive thing in my life. It was and still is an experience. However, I often forget that instead women… are liberating. I mean being a woman is liberating. Meeting other women is liberating, and so I understood why for the first time I wanted to participate to a women’s collective, something I would never have imagined, because I usually like mixed, odd, eccentric things. And tonight is like this, only we’re all women, so it’s beautiful. Yes, I can tell you already what I’ll take home for sure. I will take home a sense of freedom. I mean the great feeling of letting go I found straight away. It’s really nice. Because I think that to a certain extent being a mother takes this away from us: a sense of liberation. Not freedom, but a sense of liberation, the right to feel reckless. Reckless. Somehow not being a mother has a double side, doesn’t it? And I’ve always looked, not with envy, those who are not mothers, but great respect and a good dose of curiosity, because it takes courage not being…in a certain way.
That’s why I said that I always come in a little stiff, always a little bit too good, right? Because maybe for quite some time I’ve been riding this idea of me, but that’s how I am. Instead I’m neither a good nor rigid girl. I am just reckless. So I’m glad to be reckless with you.»

MARZIA: «I was raised by a grandmother who was widowed at 30, with three children, she always worked, she never wanted to remarry, she built three houses and settled her children. My mother has always been the breadwinner in the family. So, although they did what society expected them to do, in the end, deep down they have been… outsider. I mean, she referred to her mom, but not in the facts. In this sense I was lucky, I say: “I was raised by a matriarchal family.” My father is a wonderful person however he is kind of a marginal figure in my family. We are all women, men only arrived brought by us. All women, all had daughters, granddaughters, the only one who got pregnant with a boy at 24 weeks she literally expelled him, in the sense the baby was born. In my house there is this legend that that it’s us women determining the sex, while usually is determined by the male part, in my family there is this legend that women decide the sex. So much of my way of being and thinking comes from my being raised by this kind of woman.»
SERENA: «So it was interesting to know… It’s interesting because the way I am now is precisely because I fought against that culture.»
MARZIA: «And we got to more or less at the same point then in the end. And when you learned you had girls? It’s a responsibility. Mainly because, apart from that, the point is… I’ve always felt strait-jacketed by the gender stereotypes for women. I have always been the opposite of what is expected or what a little girl was supposed to be. I have been fighting all my life against that and so the idea of having girls… My daughters being totally different from each other, confirms on the field that being a girl does not mean being in a certain way, since they are two girls, both owning a vagina, but they couldn’t be more different from each other.»
SERENA: «Instead in my story I felt more understood on this aspect by the male figure in the house, that is my father, right? So it’s exactly the opposite.»
NICOLETTA: «Today, talking to my mother, she said that I was her emancipation. I always felt this role, because since childhood I always said no. No. I mean it’s something that for me… There was no place for me… There was no place for me. And now I’m getting emotional because it’s very intense. Why was there no place for me? So the difficulty is not in forcing your way in, but finding your place. No need to force your way in. The difficulty is in being there with no anxiety, but right there, exactly where you choose to be, without too much anxiety. And so in that sense I’m glad I grew up inside a traditionalist, Catholic, heavy family. Because now that I see my eldest daughter, who is 13, poor girl has a mother who pester her with new things, okay? I pinned this role on her. However, the ability to tell her right away: “You can be whatever you want to be.” She knows it perfectly well. Those outside don’t know it yet, but she knows. And then I have two younger kids twins, who are both girlish, no they are really girlish, in the sense that… And she knows them well, I have a little boy who’s been fighting with his cousin since he was three because she tells him that he can’t wear pantyhose and he tells her, “I do whatever I want, and you can’t tell me that I can’t wear pink.” We really talk about silly things, but my son can’t wait to get home to put on his pantyhose. He wants to feel contained, and I also think it’s reductive having to explain all the time that there are motivations. Sometimes motivations are reductive. That’s why I’m very glad I found a group where I don’t need to ask: “Do you have children? But you have…” Why should you owe me motivations? Motivations are totally reductive. So, that’s all. Thanks.»

ECATERINA: «I am Ekaterina, I am from Romania. In August it will be 20 years since I came to Latina. When I first arrived in Italy I came straight to Latina and I didn’t move from here. I put down strong roots.
I have children, I thought I wanted them, then I realized… Yes, they happened to me, I kept them, I raised them, I loved them, however if I could back I wouldn’t do them, with the mindset I have now… I had them because society was like that, you had to be a mother, because you had to get married, it was a whole process that a woman had to… I was not comfortable, but I didn’t know better, they were all doing that. In fact, I always felt inadequate because I didn’t feel like a good mother… But then, I had to get to 47 years old to realize that there are many women like me, women who also chose not to have children. If they have a child, they say: “Well, I did it however, it’s not like I have an innate sense of motherhood, I raise it.” And I found myself there. I think I never had female friendships because wherever I turned they spoke about children, about husband, cooking, the house, what a bore! My father raised me, not because I don’t have a mother, but my mother… I don’t know, maybe she didn’t want children either, she never loved us, and never even made the effort to pretend she did. Instead, my father gave me all the love, the culture, the love for books, for movies. Often I thought: “Maybe I should have been a boy because I like those things better.” I didn’t even find myself as a woman, I didn’t recognize myself there, but not because I’m not a woman or other, but just because I was interested in other things, instead around me women only talked about that. About three years ago, right? I discovered a reading group and it struck me that one of the people, a woman who was participating in this reading group said: “Finally I can talk to someone about books, and not about what cooked today, and what you will cook tonight? Or stuff like that.” And I found that I like women. Now I’m glad that I’m a woman. I’m still working on myself, discovering myself as I go along. I mean I got to 47 and I’m discovering myself only now, so for me it’s a rebirth. Being here with so many other women, finding myself on the same page for so many different reasons. I am happy.»

PAOLA: «I am very grateful for this occasion tonight which is beautiful. I came also to the other Lunàdigas meetings, and I had no idea it was so beautiful. I said to everyone: “No, I’m busy on February 2.” “What do you have to do?” “I’m busy.” I didn’t go out last night because I work in the evening, my friends got mad and I said “No, I have to go out tomorrow night.” So I was waiting for this night.
I am 44 years old and I live with a cat named Diù, like Manu. I am from Campania, I came here in 2006. I’ve been married, I did not have children. Currently I live with my cat. I am a teacher of Italian for foreigners, and I also teach in the prison section here in the Latina prison, incidentally, in the women’s section. These experiences came into my life at a particular time of transformation, and they have been beautiful. I thought that I was going to teach, and one of the first classes was in the morning, all women, really amazing women, who have imparted such great strength to me, and for me it’s not like going to work. Afghan, Indian, Romanian, Kurdish, it’s an opportunity for growth, a beautiful life experience for me, which is enriched this year with the experience with… They call themselves the Women of Via Aspromonte, they are the women of Latina women’s prison section. Also there I discovered the strength of extraordinary women. I tiptoed there and I was full of fears, because I was also afraid to hurt someone. I didn’t want to be aggressive, because they feel discriminated. They are in prison. The situation makes me ask myself how I am working, how things are getting on. Even there, a community was created. As for me, I forget that I am in a prison, and I am with women who are giving me so much, there is an immense exchange. What I noticed is that maybe, for the first time in their lives, they are able to be women as well, because they come from very inflexible families, where maybe they were annihilated. They had to be moms, wives, aunts, households with a very focused vision on taking care of the house, the children, the interests that were there, things like that. So for the first time they, and me with them, we rediscover ourselves, our identity, our passions. There they are discovering themselves and I with them. I thank you also for this opportunity to know myself further and to grow with you, thank you.»

ISABELLA: «I’ve been miked. I didn’t think I was going to be the second to last, and to be rather anxious about this thing. I’m Isabella, I’m 40 years old, and, Marzia, I’m social worker as well. But it’s not a thing… I never like to say: “I’m a social worker.” but rather ” I do social work.” Because it’s something that I feel is a part of my…I mean, of the role I’m playing. in this historical moment in the world. I’m existentially restless, I mean always… I mean, something that has always been very comfortable for me is also job insecurity until some time ago. I have moved more than ten times, something that has always came to my rescue, moving homes, changing place to stay, changing job every two, three years. It was a dimension that at first I thought could be problematic as… Instead, that constant changing, was my thing after all. I don’t have children, I don’t have a partner, a stable relationship. One thing I’ve often thought about, often about this dinner, that it felt like something I wanted to say, somehow to self-empower myself, and give me strength. Not having children has always been a rather problematic condition for me, it always made me feel guilty for this as a human being. It’s always been, in a family context, predominantly thrown at me as a condition of lack, as if it was a missing limb, or at any rate a condition that I was living with guilt. One thing, on the other hand, that helped me a lot on the path to legitimacy, was given to me by my mother. The possibility of telling myself: “Oh, don’t worry, it’s fine.” It may sound silly though the moment your mother says: “Look, you have the right to feel inadequate, or choose not to be a mother.” It’s something that gave me almost a… That’s why what Nicoletta said earlier resonated to me. A role, an opportunity to be, like: “Oh, I can be here even if I’m uncomfortable with it, even if it’s not the condition I’ve chosen for myself that, I don’t know what it’s going to be someday, maybe…” I can do it, I can do it in so far as the person who gives birth to you also say: “I have not always been totally comfortable in this situation.” And you can say it! And you can live with it, you can also be there as a daughter, when your mother says to you: “I wasn’t exactly delighted each and every time I got pregnant.
I even questioned that, I mean, if it happened at a different time, I might have chosen otherwise.” And strangely enough, as painful as it might sound, this opportunity to connect with my mother where she also said: “Look it was exhausting for me too.” For me it was just: “Oh, then it can be done.” It can be acceptable, just as a permission to exist in this being uncertain, which was the kind of insecurity I said before, which is my situation. C’est tout!»
SERENA: «We’ll have her talk to my mom then.»
STEFANIA: «You can choose something else. I felt that the relationship we had was important because she always came to me as the mother, four children. You’ve made it. You know? Sometimes one also gets too high ideas. My daughter, one of my daughters. My first daughter who is 33 or 34, I stopped counting, and she doesn’t have children, nor… I mean she has various stories, however, she is still searching for herself. But I felt this comparison, right? I liked what Isabella said, because she confirmed this thing between me and her, not so long ago, when I said to her: “Look, I think it’s important that you go your own way, and don’t think that having children is the only possible way. I don’t know, I liked getting pregnant it was a choice, I enjoyed it, but I mean, I think that you may like so many other things and so many other options.»

DANIELA: «When I tried to have a child, I couldn’t. I tried for ten years to have children, even turning to assisted fertilization. I mean it’s been a very long experience, and also very painful, but I didn’t succeed in having children. I lost two of them, and so… But I had a dream, which was adoption, regardless of my personal path, as a biological mother. So, let’s say I pursued both paths. However, let’s say in this path of many years I came to terms with this idea of motherhood, which on the one hand seemed to me something that would complete my life, right? Like something that would really put the… that would give me the chance to put down roots as a woman, maybe because it was something I couldn’t reach. So, it was really overwhelming and painful. Eventually, let’s say, I had managed to find a balance, to really find joy in my life, regardless of my not having a child. Right then, I was called by the juvenile court for a little girl. I have an adopted daughter, which was a grown up when I adopted her, because by the time she arrived she was already 10. So it was an experience that brought me back, somehow. Now she’s a 23-year-old girl, she’s studying psychology, she’s feminist, in fact she should come here. She’s sure of what she wants, and she too doesn’t want children. But for me it was a beautiful thing, because anyway becoming a mother at 44 years old of a 10-year-old girl is not a picnic, right? It’s a total change of life, yes.»
VOICE OFF: «Much respect»
DANIELA: «No, I was married because the adoption in Italy… I was married for 15 years.
Well, I can say it was not easy. It was difficult to reconcile motherhood with this idea of mine to be a mother. I wanted to be a mother so much, I was so happy to be a mother, those were the best years of my life. I didn’t want to miss a single minute, even now. Whenever I can be with my daughter… I felt like… I didn’t leave her to anybody, usually you leave them with the grandmothers. However, I was so eager to build this relationship with her…I listened to all these…I listened carefully to everything you have told and I found myself a little bit in all these stories. I lived through the phase of not being able to have children, of making peace with myself, of being a woman without children in relation to society, of motherhood as a matter of urgency, let’s say because anyway, once you have a child at home you have to get things going, there is no more time to think. Children must be filled with contents, they have to be stimulated, you have to be a parent. You have to be yourself too, though? I mean, you can’t smother the baby, so you have to find a balance between what I was, what I had been up to that… All my interests, my things.
And so nothing, being here is very interesting for me because I find myself in every piece of your stories that you are telling. Anyway, I really like being a mom. No really, I like it very much. And what I like most is that in so many ways I haven’t had a lucky life, but in this I consider myself very lucky, as I think that children are everybody’s, kids are everybody’s children, and that you can really take in a minor and give them so much. I mean, it’s a really great experience that enriches just so much. And in the end it becomes your own flesh, it takes five minutes after you have them. There no much to think about it. Well, that’s all.»
STEFANIA: «Being a woman and not wanting or not having children, or being a woman who had children by choice or not, it doesn’t seem to me, a very different battle from the system in general of all the stereotypes pined on women: motherhood, family, having children. In fact the thing… Right? The thing that I liked about this, is that starting from an issue, from a need of women who did not have children or chose not to have children, and felt somehow discriminated against by this patriarchal society we live in, I also recognize myself even as a mother and as a woman who wanted children, but I wanted them in different way. I am not at ease either in a system that labels women as dead branches, mules, and so on, but also labels women with children as mothers, angels of the hearth, with this maternal instinct. No! For me… I loved being a mom, even when I was pregnant with a full belly like that, but it was my thing, I always felt like a single mother, with four children even though I had a partner, a husband. That was my thing, it came natural to me. However I think the society, with the system I am, I had to fight for a different way of being a mother, you know? It’s not that I felt… I mean it’s the system that is wrong. I mean I think it must annoy everybody, because it’s not working. It’s absurd, and forces us to be what we’re not. I hope I was a mother in a different way from the way they wanted me to become or how they wanted me to feel.»
ROBERTA: «Why do you work all day? Why you do this? Why you do that? – What a bore!»
DANIELA: «I had a bit of a peculiar experience. I found myself with many problems to face, in loneliness, because in Italy we are not ready to face certain things. Problems with the juvenile court… well, then we enter other areas, right? But for example, school, psychological support with respect to certain things. But also some people who talked about my motherhood as a “What a beautiful thing you did.” “Such a beautiful gesture you did”. It’s not that I didn’t see it that way. I just lived it, period. And it was something that really gave me… It really gave me of label let’s say: “You did a good deed,” right? I felt… And this thing really bothered me, completely. Maybe it was that more than anything else. I don’t know, from my family, my mother said things like… My daughter obviously didn’t call me mom, because she was ten years old, so it took some time for this to happen. But when it was about to happen, I don’t know for example when she called me, maybe I was at work, my daughter was with her grandma, she says:” Ah I’ll put Daniela on.” ” Mom, tell her mom! I mean she’s trying to, I’d like too, then if it happens good, if not…” “It seems strange to me though, strange to see you as a mother.” I was like: “Whatever, but just try to get beyond that.” I had this kind of problems with my family, they were so transparent about that… I mean, this little girl comes along, you are 44. They didn’t get into the part right away. But I appreciated that more, though, than something false glued on it… But whatever.»

FEDERICA: «Actually it’s been a path for everyone. I’m Federica, I’m 38 years old. Now my greatest love is my work. I wake up happy about it in the morning, it never happened to me and it happened two years ago. Life gave me this gift. No I couldn’t work as social assistant, I’m too emotional. I’m emotional, I would be biased, I couldn’t do it. No I do training management in a company of about 200 employees. It’s kind of being a mom, especially for the interns. Especially because mine it’s a male environment, so when a woman is hired, it means a lot to me. So it really starts an exaggerated feminism, also because a male environment is often sexist. Although my boss, even if a man, is a wonderful person. I’m here maybe a little bit out of selfishness because living a masculine and sexist environment every day I need all your energy to find the more feminine part of me again, because lately I’ve been very aggressive, very determined and I lost maybe my femininity.»
VOICE OFF: «You breathed in too much testosterone.»
FEDERICA: «Yes, so much that I made some of them cry. However it’s okay, this is also a phase of life, it passes. So girls I am here because I need you, and I hope to give you something. As for motherhood, if you had asked me a year ago I would have burst into tears, because not having a child had been my biggest failure. Today I can say I am the mother to many people, to many events and many situations. I am a mom, and happy to be one.»

SILVIA: «I don’t know if I didn’t have children by choice, I think I did, but my choices were always kind of taken by parts of me that fortunately were quite autonomous and independent, because I don’t know what I would have done if I had followed the footprints that were dictated to me, in short. I don’t have children, I’m glad I don’t have children but I don’t care about that really, it was just to connect to Lunàdigas. I have a job where… I deal with a lot of suffering, I was thinking about it today, as I had quite young patients and I wondered, maybe in view of this evening, how much I actually find myself acting as a kind of redeeming parent. I have to give you back that loving image of yourself which you haven’t received in 15-20-25-30-50-70 years. So in a way I say: “Wow, I’m a good mom as a therapist.” I don’t know if I would have been as a mother, however that “if” is good for me to stay. I’m here because I like to go out at night but only when the activities are structured. I get bored going to the pub for a drink or things like that, like hanging out in the square. I really like it when you go out because you have a common goal, so I am very happy to participate.»

VANESSA: «It was important for me to be here tonight. I’m not a mother, I don’t know if I’ll ever be. Maybe I will. Sometimes joke about it with my boyfriend, saying: ” Let’s have a baby.” But it’s not in the plan at all and we joke about it a lot. If one day the topic gets more serious we’ll stop treating it so lightly. But I wanted to be here tonight, I had also been at the other meeting, when the documentary was screened, because I hope and believe this is a safe place, which I felt I needed because I attend very few of them. I’m very young, when I started doing politics I was even younger. It is a bit tiring. Very tiring. So nothing, I would like in short… Anyway the topic of women… I consider myself a feminist, I hang around environments often with few women and also not many feminists, however I happen to meet more and more. I think this group is really a safe place so I really wanted, even after such a tiring day, to also carve out some time to spend it with you.»

MARZIA: «I have worked very hard to get rid of some preconceptions, still if a friend comes to my home if it’s untidy, I feel ashamed. Although it’s not a rational thing, it’s something coming back from somewhere… Why should I be ashamed with another woman who is probably in the same condition as me? Why should I make sure to have the house always tidy, when I honestly don’t care about it? It comes to me automatically, though, so it means that it’s so rooted on a cultural level that we really have to reset the whole thing. My mother maybe was a bit like me, in the sense… she had to do it but she never loved doing it, so then in the end she endured it for long and she suffered from this thing. So we used to do many other things anyway, but then you had to clean up and she took it badly, so I experienced it as badly as she did. I mean, I would rather go for a walk than stay at home and clean, however then that chaos makes me nervous. So, I get to a point where I have to force myself to do it.»
VOICE OFF: «That is the order of things, the order of the universe.»
MARZIA: «Yes, but mine was just an example in the end, of the upbringing we received, also at a social level, all the stereotypes that we endure.»
ILARIA: «It’s true! My grandmother was like that. My grandmother said: “Tidy up, if the neighbor drops in for a coffee it’s not nice if you are on the couch.” “I’m just on the couch, I’m not killing anyone!” But this thing stayed with me since I was a little girl and both in my house and at other people’s places I sit on the couch all composed, always fearing someone may see me slouched on the couch, tired. No, you have to sit composed. I mean you repeat it with the people who live with you, because if there is somebody, you have to be composed. No but I think that the example of tidying up the house is just the tip of the iceberg of what is then outside. If you want to wear a miniskirt… “With big thighs and a big ass, you can’t wear a miniskirt.” But if I want to wear low-cut shirt, I should be free to do it. “You are a mom, how do you dress?” I should be free to dye my hair purple if I want to. I mean, you see, it’s a mountain that…»
MARZIA: «I struggle against my mother-in-law who is convincing Marta, my first daughter who is 11, she will turn 12 this year, because girls don’t have short hair, girls don’t wear jumpsuits, girls don’t go to the boys’ section to buy clothes. I see femininity in my daughter wearing a jumpsuits, with short hair because she is really feminine, I can see that Not as her sister who loves wearing tulle, because her being a girl is very strong, but I still have to justify her and argue about this. She is a… My daughter said to me last year: “Mom, am I obliged to have children?” “No, you are not obliged.” We talked about it, she asked me how children are born, when she found out, she said: “Do I have to?” I told her:” No, my love.” Actually the scene was a bit splatter, so… They are very clever… Like all children, when they are born they already… In addition to being very curious, when they are born they already have so much, meaning that to me they gave me so much. And so when they ask me I answer. When I told her they are born with a little cut on my belly, “But you don’t have it.” “Sit down love, mom explains what’s going on properly.” Because if you let them, they have so much to give you and that’s one of the reasons why I feel so responsible not only because they are my kids, but they are daughters.»
SILVIA: «The thing that I seem to observe is that not only there are many women, tonight there is so much feminine that in my opinion has to find space, which is not a feminine related to women. I don’t like to call it feminine, I can’t think of another word now, because I create too much duality, sorry. It is that kind of being welcoming, that being ready to listen, but an active listening, not to a passive one, not just sitting there silently, but someone who processes, who creates a gestation, from the seeds that come, right? So that’s what seems to me the most important thing. For instance, I heard various examples, I don’t know if you can talk about personal things, yes, I think so. I like the combination of elements that I may find of myself in others and viceversa. As for me, I would have so much wanted to dress in tulle, in pink with glitter, while they made me wear jumpsuits as it was more comfortable. I had short hair because it was very curly and it was hard to comb it. I wanted my femininity, right? It took me many years to recognize it, however, it seems to me that everyone has their own laws. I heard this need to say it’s okay if I want to be messy, okay, it’s beautiful. But it is beautiful because you do what you want. Because I think not only we women have been forced to fit into a system, because the same system that pigeonholed women into a certain aura of expectations, of beauty, of a certain canon, has done so with men too. Necessarily, if the woman has to be positioned this way, than man has to be positioned that way, and he can’t move. So identity goes according to where the needle is positioned. I think the beautiful thing about this group is to take away those pre-packaged categories and to let each one find their own categories, and even within one’s own categories one should not just stop there. I if I think of myself a year back, or myself two or five years ago I had different categories.
And in one year I will have another one and the beauty of… Maybe we women have been accustomed, from this point of view we have been lucky, to see ourselves as sensitive beings who listen to the other, and this has played in our favor, because then we do this. And the men, poor them, I really feel sorry for them, they don’t have this. They don’t do it, but I think many of them would like to be here.»
DANIELA: «I think it’s right just to listen to ourselves as human beings, right? As we are, without defining ourselves in any way. Living our experiences and comparing ourselves to others. This thing you were saying struck me: “The person I was a year ago.” This continuous becoming of ourselves, that is, not losing the thread of who we are and where we want to… what we would like to achieve. But also, I don’t know, welcoming, teasing ourselves a little, not defining ourselves too much. Otherwise, in my opinion we risk the opposite, right?»

TATIANA: «I did not say why I am not a mother, maybe I will reconnect with the topic to add this other thing, as I am very, how should I say, grateful but also indebted to you, because all the very strong emotions that have come out this evening and that we have been able to gather in this circle, well, we made that happen. It is very beautiful to be able to share, without filters and without screens. Tears, emotions and sorrows in such a supportive and shared way, my gosh, So, really thank you, thank you, thank you.
I wanted to be a mother all my life. I remember in high school I even summoned five friends, boys, and I told them: “If when I’m 35 my biological clock starts ticking and I haven’t become a mother, I’ll come get you… I thought it happened in the movies and you will help me. Oh, all five of them said yes. So, I wasn’t worried, on sure ground, perfect. At 35, however, I was happily cohabiting, in love with a guy who couldn’t have any children.
Mauro has a story of his own that I briefly tell you because it explains something. He had lived the previous 20 years with a woman 15 years older than him, and had been widowed two years before he met me. Now we’re celebrating 21 years of living together, and I’m 18 years younger than he is.
My father always says: “Well, he’s gained.” But I gained for sure, because before him I only had short relationships of two, three years. This was just an aside to say that when we thought that maybe I was 35, 36 years old so I could either stop taking the pill or think about becoming a mother, he looks at me and says: “Wait till I go to the doctor.” He came back with a smile from ear to ear, you know like happiness glowing from every pore. “What did this doctor ever say to you!” “I can’t have children. I mean I have sperm, they work, but they’re lazy, and when they come they’re dead. So don’t ask me…” He doesn’t talk like that, he is from Lombardia. But that smile and that happiness… He was relieved. Exactly, he was just relieved, this made me completely reconsider:
“Maybe this sense of motherhood I’ve been cultivating since I summoned those five… Let’s reconsider it.” Maybe it wasn’t so rooted, so felt, because with that smile of Mauro’s I completely changed my mind.
I said: “Either I change boyfriend, or maybe nature has decided for me that it doesn’t have to be that way.” So, for the 20 years of living together we didn’t have children, as he says, we did travel, because with the kayak we went all over the Mediterranean. When he celebrated his retirement, we spent six months sailing around the Ionian islands of Greece from Athens to Santorini and back.
In short, we shared other experiences that were not about starting a family.
The last thing I want to tell is that when I found out that we could not have children, I worried about my mother, who had always desired to become a grandmother. Luckily, at a kayak gathering I had the chance to tell her: “Look Savì, I’m sorry, but…” Who said about being called mom?
I always called my mother by her name, because we were four families, four moms and eight kids,so if eight of us called out “Mom”, all four would turn and after four times they said: “That’s enough. Call us by name.” So it was like this, Ornella, Carla, Savina and period. Instead my mother said: “Well. It is what it is.” She raised the son of the nurse who had helped my grandmother in the last years. I mean she found her own way dimension of grandmotherhood, and I found my own way of experiencing motherhood. I understand that men may feel the need for something like this, but they have lived it for 4000 years and we have not, so we have to take back our spaces. On this note, I claim a strong feminist inspiration and if you want then we discuss it, but feminism is an action, it is not a being. It’s something that requires us to continually pay attention and a continuous action.»

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