Lplace of care and respect, The Mother’s Lounge is the service dedicated to pregnant women or women with babies within one year of life offered by The Big House Cooperative of Sesto San Giovanni (MI), in collaboration with Mission Bambini. It is a protected space for sharing joys but above all difficulties and fears related to motherhood.
The living room of mothers and stereotypes about motherhood
«Sharing is a great opportunity to overcome the sense of guilt. As long as I, mom, keep going to midwives who assure me that every woman who wants to breastfeed can do it, I’ll continue to feel, alone, wrong. But no, I’m not the bug of the system, that’s okay» Explains Francesca Bubba, “activist for motherhood”, and narrator of the podcast “The forms of motherhood in which the mothers of the living room told their stories.
That of the shadows is the most difficult and unexpected dimension of motherhood, which instead is still too often told as a moment of light. «Society has a clear idea of motherhood: intensive, all-encompassing, edifying. But it doesn’t correspond to what women experience,” Bubba continues.
The podcast that sheds light on the shadows of being a mother
“I chose the seven experiences that struck me most,” says the author. «From obstetric violence to Pma, from the themes of work and the gender gap to loneliness. Throughout the episodes we highlight those aspects of the motherhood prism that are shrouded in the shadow of stereotypes and taboos.”
Hot topics, very hot in the era of record drop in births: «The question here is that of desire: what must be protected and fulfilled is the desire for motherhood where it is present. That of who wants the first child, and by whom he wants the second but it can’t because it’s not sustainable. On the other hand, motherhood cannot be imposed on those who do not want a child, and instead are constantly asked: “So, a baby?”. It cannot be imposed on anyone who chooses to abort».
Desire, already: what are the desires of women (who are also, not primarily, mothers)?. “The mother as a desiring subject: from here, I believe, the battles for female self-determination should start again,” says Bubba.
The forms of motherhood is on the major distribution platforms for podcasts and on the Mission Bambini website.
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