Nela, a high school teacher, who travelled the world for her work, teaching in Italy, Spain , USA and Morocco, where she currently lives when interviewed by Lunàdigas. The exchange around motherhood springs non only from personal choices, but also from the possibily to compare different realities.
Vuoi ascoltare e leggere altre testimonianze? Sostieni l’archivio vivo di Lunàdigas
NICOLETTA: «Nela?»
NELA: «Hello, hello. I’m Nela. Can you hear me? Sometimes Skype connections with Morocco aren’t the best.»
NICOLETTA: «I hear you Nela.»
NELA: «Hello, hello, good morning. When you proposed me this interview, I think it was the first time I asked myself why I don’t have children. I went through a process of reflection these days, maybe for the first time, and the answers were clear. I don’t like children and children don’t like me. I never liked them and I never had this idea. For example, when I was young I didn’t want to be a mother. I wanted to be American, I wanted to learn English, I don’t know why. I didn’t play with dolls, and I didn’t like these games where I pretended to be a mom.
So, after all, this probably never was a totally conscious choice but that’s always been there. I don’t like children and they don’t like me.
I think one of the reasons why I don’t like children it may be because I like talking with people, I like exchanges of ideas. And what children offer you are never ideas, maybe naiveté or other things, plays. But I don’t care about that.
I’m more interested in an intellectual relationship that I can have with people. And I can’t have this type of relationship with children.
Due to my profession, I have lived in different countries: United States, Italy, Spain and currently I live in Morocco. And if I really think about it, there isn’t a huge difference between Italy, Spain and United States. Even though, for example, in the USA, women without children aren’t considered much, as it is such a huge country, that nobody really… They are independent. They are really different. Instead in Spain and Italy, there’s still this idea that a woman must be mother and if she isn’t a mother something is missing. There must be something inside you that makes you feel different. Different also in a negative way, you know?
Morocco is a completely different reality. I realised that it’s unbelievable because there is no choice. Here it’s not possible not to be a mother, As it’s not possible not to be someone’s wife.
Usually, women who are alone are seen with disregard and contempt, with something different. So imagine women without children! I think it’s still a cause for divorce, because it’s unconceivable! So looking from this perspective, we do have a choice, while Moroccan women don’t. This is the main difference.
Thinking about why I never had any regrets, never regretted not being a mother, I never missed motherhood.
Maybe, now that I’m thinking out loud, the fact of being a teacher, always among with teenagers, people from 14 to 18 years old, it’s a way to be maternal, because in my way of teaching there’s closeness and warmth.
They tell me things, sometimes they ask me for advice. And the other day, a Moroccan boy told me: “You’re like a mother for me, teacher”. That made me laugh, and I told him: “God forbid! Luckily I’m not”. And I laughed. And this made me think that they see me also as a maternal figure, something I had never thought about it. Because I’m the same age of their mothers, or even older. And maybe this contact with young people somehow makes me feel like a mother.»
Vuoi ascoltare e leggere altre testimonianze? Sostieni l’archivio vivo di Lunàdigas
