It is always us and our circumstances, also when we raise people

I remember the date when I signed up for the waiting list to access assisted reproduction treatments through social security. Wait, think about it, evaluate it, the day will come, don't back down despite the uncertainty, even without having a stable job. When my turn came, I embraced the opportunity with all the fear in the world, and it went well. What a small, great miracle, life! Already pregnant, I often thought about the greatness of nature, which had wanted “everything in me to be a yes” at the first attempt, without too many obstacles, although I had counted on great help from science and technology. It remains curious that at that moment I recognized the little wooden figurine in my parents' home study, a Ghanaian fertility deity. It inspired me and I felt protected.

Between the first day and the 1,360th day of my daughter's life, which is when I am finishing this text, everything has gone by quickly. I haven't managed to write what I would have liked to write for her to have a diary of her early childhood, and I have forgotten anecdotes that perhaps I should have recorded for the person of the future. It has been 360 days since we stopped breastfeeding, but she still likes to feel the warmth of my body, and I take the opportunity to teach her that the body belongs to each of us, that a certain consent is needed if we want to touch another body.

Teaching, learning, an infinite virtuous circle. I had once said that what I was most looking forward to about raising a child was the child's learning process. It is exciting when they start to speak and little by little they articulate sentences and add complements and vocabulary, and their thinking becomes complex. And the drawings, how I love them: each time the figures are more elaborate! I had underestimated this process. But the biggest thing, the most beautiful thing, and I hadn't thought about it much, is the unfolding of affections and emotions involved in taking care of a child. Absolute love, unlimited suffering, and the animal sensation of smelling your offspring to recognize them from the herd, for them to sit on your lap, for you to hug them and, in turn, for them to make you feel protected and comfortable.

Although I wouldn't trade my daughter for anything in the world, raising her is exhausting for me. My parents occasionally say to me: “Remember that you are a single mother!” I am a single mother, like so many other single mothers, but I am lucky enough to have unconditional support and I speak from a certain privilege. Raising a child is a stimulating challenge, a long-distance adventure, and a very beautiful experience, but sometimes it seems incompatible with the present time. I am one of those who feel that everything goes fast; work is demanding, balancing things is a nearly impossible balancing act, I lack time for myself (time to read, to exercise because my arms hurt, to have a bit of a social life), we lack time for the two of us, we lack a bit of space in the rented apartment where we live. These are the circumstances and the context from which I carry out the education and accompaniment of my child and this, whether I like it or not, has its consequences.

For example, the last year I have shouted a lot: I haven't hit, but I have shouted with anger and all my bile when my daughter has put me against the ropes. She doesn't like it when I shout, she verbalizes it and my heart breaks. I see myself reflected in a social media post that reflected on the fragile and very fine distance between being in a good mood and the outburst of anger because the child doesn't listen: one goes from one extreme to the other, from love to hate, with a snap of the fingers (and immediately you return to the initial state of boundless love). I know it cannot be that patience runs out so easily and that an adult person must be able to overcome a child's tantrum. I know that shouting is the very last resort. A pedagogue I consulted to give me tools to educate my daughter gave me the following reflection: maybe the mother shouts, but the mother, after all, is always there. The unavoidable and faithful presence compensates for everything...

I trust that among my daughter's childhood memories there is not the image of the choleric mother, but that there are the wonderful teachers who have helped us grow first at nursery school and now at school, her first friends, the hugs and bites from her cousins, the book Father Christmas (by Raymond Briggs) that we read whether it is cold or hot, the parades of giants, the exhibitions of drawings in the hallway of the house and the game of taking note of menus that cost three euros. She pulls me and I try to keep up with her as best I can, tired but infinitely grateful (to the public health system and, by extension, to society, for the best gift that has been given to me).