Nora e Annarita, both retired teachers, talk about their very different experience of motherhood – one mother of a wanted child, while the other constantly in search of true independence from any role – and how these differences affected their life as a couple.

Vuoi ascoltare e leggere altre testimonianze? Sostieni l’archivio vivo di Lunàdigas!

NORA: «My name is Nora, I’m a philosophy teacher I have retired five months ago, I’d say I find it difficult to adapt to this new situation, because both the study and the teaching of philosophy have been the most important thing of my life.»
ANNARITA: «I’m Annarita and I have been a primary teacher for 35 years, I taught working students, and then at secondary school, having a lot of fun. Four years ago, I happily retired and now I can dedicate myself to many other things I like, such as dancing, singing, listening to music, reading and collecting stories.»
NORA: «You know the other day I have been asked to talk about the reasons behind my not having children. I was very pleased, but at the same time it struck me because, as you know, this is a key point in our relationship. For this reason, I would really like if we could talk about it in term of a dialogue. Because I have often wished that this thing could become public somehow, it could come out from the private sphere because maybe this can help us.»
ANNARITA: «Well, help us… to face a problem, a key difference between us. You don’t have children because you didn’t want them, on the contrary I have one because I wanted to. It’s not a small difference.»
NORA: «It is a wonderful difference in itself, because this would suggest that we are two free women who have made this choice, at some point in life, which is different for each of us. However this can be quite a burden in a relationship, it can take away freedom. Don’t you think?»
ANNARITA: «Well, yes, of course, it takes away freedom. To a certain extent, having a child takes away freedom, this much is true as you don’t totally own… as you well know… »
NORA: «No, I wanted to say the opposite. I wanted to say that you having a child doesn’t take your freedom away, but mine.»
ANNARITA: «Of course!»
NORA: «Why do you think? What really happens?»
ANNARITA: «Well, it happens that I kind of enter… I enter in a dimension that you don’t share, you don’t… perhaps, you don’t even fully understand. Well I… we have really talked this through, about the reason why you didn’t want children. Why?»
NORA: «This thing…»
ANNARITA: «When did you decide? You are very quick on everything, I believe that in kindergarten you have already decided it, I don’t know when and why of this decision, I never fully understood it, because…»
NORA: «It’s very simple, after all…»
ANNARITA: «Well…»
NORA: «After all, I’m making it coincide, now of course, it’s a reconstruction of my history, in the light of the present…»
ANNARITA: «Well, of course!»
NORA: «It’s difficult to trace exactly the various phases, but I can say that the choice of not having children has been a constant in my life, maybe since I finished the high school. I went to university, I enrolled in philosophy and then I decided that my greatest aspiration was to build a freedom in which I could be first of all accountable only to myself. Firstly, dedicating my time to my study, my profession and then it became also a political commitment. But before anything else, I dreamed of no longer playing any role, and of not being seen and interpreted starting from that role. That’s what it is. Already being a daughter…»
ANNARITA: «That’s more than enough already!»
NORA: «It’s a rather demanding task, so all in all, I didn’t have much time to be a mother because I have been a daughter. But joking aside, well, being a mother is… it’s a commitment, let’s say, it’s a responsibility that I thought I shouldn’t take because I have others, I had others, and above all I chose others. What I object to women who have children, at least to the majority of them and unfortunately you are among them, is that a child always has the priority over everything else, even over the things believed to be essential for one’s existence. But when the child appears and suddenly I, in this case, I become a consequence, I am considered a secondary element, and this regardless from my willingness to be a consequence. Somehow, I have blamed you for this, and I’ll continue to do as long as I live, because when you son is around it feels like I had to disappear.»
ANNARITA: «That’s the way it is, I swear. Well, I have no reason to deny it, if you see it in this way, of course.
However, I feel sorry for it of course, because for me having a child has been, somehow… I thought about it over time of course, back then, when I made this choice, I didn’t really… I was not aware, of course. It was like a challenge, a sense of adventure in the sense of using and experiencing this possibility that each woman has and that seems to me beautiful, but at the same time not letting myself to be totally absorbed by it. When I talk to my son, to Stefano, and I say to him: “you know, I’m proud of myself as I have never had the feeling to having sacrificed something for you, in the sense of having given up to important parts of me”. I may have been a very imperfect mother, I may have had shortcomings of course but I have always been careful not to jeopardize my freedom, managing to keep the two things together. And he tells me, what do you mean? Making no sacrifices? I know it, but I remember that some friends went out and I could not because I had a child. Furthermore, I also raised… I cannot say alone but however lacking… without regularly sharing with his father, so with some difficulties. But no sacrifices, so the fact that you tell me – the child before anything…»
NORA: «You saved the sacrifices for me.»
ANNARITA: «I don’t think so…»
NORA: «You have them…»
ANNARITA: «Unfortunately, we know that this the problem, that we would have, we would have… Thank god we are intelligent as despite this misunderstanding…»
NORA: «Thank god we are smart and we love each other, because otherwise our relationship – would have been over.»
ANNARITA: «It’ s hard, but this thing is true, there is some truth in what you are saying.»
NORA: «Not just some, it’s a precise truth and absolutely worth of the highest respect.»
ANNARITA: «Worthy of the utmost… »
NORA: «From time to time I think, I always thought that…»
ANNARITA: «It’s a partial truth.»
NORA: «Women who have children receive anyway a social acknowledgment, and this is quite obvious, while women who do not have children have to fight for it in some other way. I mean, for example, I tell you a funny story: in a school, in a high school where I taught when I was young, let’s say I was 35 or so, I was surrounded by women, even smart women, who all had children. This meant that we always talked, or rather they always talked about their children, even on our journeys, as we were commuters. It was terrible and there was no other topic of discussion.»
ANNARITA: «No, no, you could talk about husbands.»
NORA: «Of course, but sticking to our discussion topic, husbands are irrelevant. For example, I said “why don’t we organize some film screenings”. Back now, well not only at that time, but always, I used to arrive with a projector, we used to show cinema at school and so I needed time in the afternoon, but as we were commuters, I said: “Why don’t we organise somet hing one afternoon a week?”
“No, you can afford it because you don’t have children”. Or: “Why don’t we have an extra class council that could be important…” “We can’t, you can afford it because…” Well, I was so fed up with it that one day in the teachers’ room I said: “Listen, I have to tell you something, you don’t know it, but I was a single mother!” “What do you mean?” “Yes, yes, I have a daughter who is now 12 years old, I had her when I was very young, I was just a girl, and I don’t talk about this thing, I think it is something very personal, but I have a daughter”.
You have no idea how they looked at me! Suddenly, all of them looked at me in a different way, with such an interest! So I said that the fact that I had a daughter didn’t mean that I couldn’t go one afternoon to screen, for example, “Allonsanfàn”. So, I kept pretending for a few days with infinite success and then I had to confess.»
ANNARITA: «That you were a liar!»
NORA:  «No, that it was just a provocation, to make them realize that my image in their eyes changed only according to this element: whether I had children or not. It was really interesting, and it made me think a lot.»
ANNARITA: «Being a mother is not enough to escape from this kind of social sanctions, because you also have to be a good self-sacrificing mother. I wasn’t a good mother, you know it well, I mean I wasn’t considered one; I think I have been for me and for my son and I’m really happy about my choice.
But what has your choice of not having children given to you? My choice of having them, at least one, has given to me a lot of strength. What about you?»
NORA: «I obviously found strength in other dimensions. Meanwhile I always had a desire, an aspiration, an ambition to be independent. Totally independent! I really decided that the most beautiful thing I could built in my life was to be able to count on myself, truly on myself. It makes me think of Teresa of Avila, when she tells her sisters that you have to define a small circle around yourself and prevent anyone from overstepping. Well, for me that small circle is an inner dimension within which I really deal only with myself, which doesn’t mean not being in this world, because with this small circle I am in the world. It’s as if, like in Diotima’s letters, I must give life to myself. Before giving birth to a child, for example, I thought that I should give birth to myself, and this commitment has captured me so much that I’m still trying. Do you know what I mean? I find strength in my will and ability to constantly put myself to the test, and consequently, of course, in the world. As you know well, I find true strength in the relationships I establish with others, especially with women, and this also comes from feminism. But before anything else, I can truly say that beyond any school and any political choice, I pursued this desire throughout my life: being able to count, first of all, on myself, without confusing myself with any other human being.»
ANNARITA: «However, a child does not prevent you to achieve this.»
NORA: «The invasion does not take place? Are you sure?»
ANNARITA: «But what happens is that you experiment, you take a chance, and you put yourself to test regarding dependence, which for me is just as interesting as independence. Dependence is also a very useful dimension to explore, which gives you the chance to measure yourself with your strength. But I can’t believe it, how is it possible that you’ve never been tempted by the idea of having a child? Not even for a moment?»
NORA: «I admit it happened for a moment. It was just for a moment. I was about 30, but it was part of a bigger picture, with the political values back then. Since there was so much talk about all the orphaned children, and blah, blah, all over the world…»
ANNARITA: «What years are we talking about?»
NORA: «The eighties.»
ANNARITA: «The eighties.»
NORA: «Yes, around the eighties, I thought that at that point, since I had a steady job and no children nor any commitment of that kind, maybe I could have adopted a little girl and guarantee her a decent life. She could have studied and I could have offered her a decent life.
That’s what I thought for a moment, the law, however, did not allow me to do that, I’ve never been willing to compromise, – so that’s the end of it.»
ANNARITA: «Nothing came of it.»
NORA: «Honestly, it was more of a political question. Moreover, I ask myself how can women have the nerve many women like you, have the nerve to give birth in this world, to creatures who are totally blameless.»
ANNARITA: «Ah, we would have been long extinct, if women … all women had made this reasoning. I don’t think there was ever a world…»
NORA: «It might have been a good solution!»
ANNARITA: «Good God, no, no, come on, no! »
NORA: «No, I’m joking, I’m very grateful to my mother if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be here.»
ANNARITA: «Exactly, you wouldn’t be here either.»
NORA: «But because she put so much of herself into it, I thought to do something else.»
ANNARITA: «Well, for me what’s important is that every woman can freely choose. There is no such thing as a better choice.»
NORA: «Yes, I agree.»
ANNARITA: «I really don’t think so. Unfortunately, we still have a lot of work to do on this.»
NORA: «We still have to work on this, but all in all, it seems to me that despite the challenges, and, I would say, some pretty deep wounds, because there have been, at least in me, and which I have experienced as being totally unfair from your part towards me and towards the quality of our relationship, I confirm that because of this quality I can still put a little effort into it.»
ANNARITA: «Really?»
NORA: «Yes.»
ANNARITA: «I’m happy to hear that.»

Vuoi ascoltare e leggere altre testimonianze? Sostieni l’archivio vivo di Lunàdigas!