Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
cas we know, the Padua prosecutor’s office challenged 33 birth certificates of daughters and sons of two mothers. In just one day, with a swipe of the sponge, retroactively eliminated 33 parentsbureaucratically making them ghosts while at the national level, despite Europe’s invitations, our government stubbornly refuses to legislate on the matter like all civilized countries.
It’s nothing new. It has been happening for years, silently, everywhere in our beautiful Italy, thanks to a State that exalts the family so much but only the one it decidesor the “blood” family.
In a nice article about RepublicChiara Valerio very clearly pointed out that «it is the prevalence of biography over biology that guarantees the autonomy and uniqueness of the person». An elementary concept for the daily life of human beings, who shouldn’t be forced to ask the government who they should love.
At this point it would be interesting that “the” prime minister (who says she always wants to put her face on it) makes one of her many winking official videos explaining to the children of same-parent families how and why they can no longer call mom or dad who they have always called by that name because he nursed them, clothed them, fed them, taken them to school, dressed their wounds, put them to bed, told them bedtime stories, etc. etc., and also explain to the grandparents that they no longer have grandchildren, and to the whole family that they no longer have the legal right to be called that.
“Mothers fathers and others. Notes on my royal and literary family” by Siri Hustvedt (Einaudi).
But history can’t be stopped, and neither can love; the shock wave of this pain provoked with such cynicism will end up prevailing over the electoral interests that move these political decisions. The family we choose for ourselves every day through the relationships we establish in the course of our existence it is an interweaving of love ties and emotional attunements that often have nothing to do with “blood”, we all grew up with acquired grandmothers and uncles, mentors and teachers who enriched our existential pantheon.
This political urgency offers us the opportunity to reflect more generally on the heterogeneous composition of our relationships and to retrace the variety of our biographies. The writer does Siri Hustvedt with her new book Mothers fathers and others. Notes on my royal and literary family (Einaudi), a personal journey back in memory to find out what we are made of, exploring the personal and symbolic encounters that have made each of us that biographical unicum in the world of which blood is only a detail.
All articles by Serena Dandini
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