Blanca Lacasa: "Do you have to love a mother just because?"

Blanca Lacasa (Madrid, 1972) is a journalist and writer. She is the author of, among others, the novel The accident (Asteroide Books) and the essay The horrible daughters (Libros del KO) that analyzes the relationships between mothers and daughters.

How important Vivian Gornick is...

— When I started Fierce Bonds I underlined the book, until I realized I was underlining everything. And it made me think: she's a woman of another age and another continent... and everything she says resonates with me. Here I realized there was a transversality that wasn't normal.

And decides to investigate mother-daughter relationships

— And to understand why they are so complicated. Many psychoanalytic books have been written, but I'm interested in the cultural, sociological, and political patterns that I believe explain transversality.

For example?

— There are generations of mothers who have been mothers without even considering it, and in some ways, this motherhood has erased their very identity. So daughters are almost their life fulfillment, and everything comes through them.

Doesn't this happen to men?

— Something that surprised me a lot during the interviews was how many women could spend hours talking about their relationship with my mother. And when it came to the father, there was little to say. And they ended up seeing that the standards for each were different. The pressure we women feel creates self-demand in all areas: at work, in friendships, and also in the family.

How is this requirement harmful?

— It leads to something women suffer a lot from: guilt and fear, which are close relatives. Some women live with a constant sense of guilt, which puts you in a different place. It's curious that there's a connection between romantic love and expectations, demands, and frustration.

What is the daughter's fault?

— Not meeting expectations, not being the perfect daughter her mother wants. And even if she did meet them, they wouldn't be what she expected. That's the point: there's a kind of permanent dissatisfaction.

But the thing is... how do you reciprocate a mother's love?

— Of course, here comes the phrase "my mother gave you life." To this, how will you respond? The debt is infinite and eternal. And besides, it's a weapon many mothers can use to make you feel guilty and hold you back.

Hold you back?

— During the interviews for the book, when I asked them when they'd felt they had reached a breaking point with my mother, many of them said, "When I left home." There's a kind of betrayal of the famous empty nest syndrome here. I mean, you feel guilty about getting older. And relationships can't continue as if your daughter is always 5 years old.

Growing up forces both of you to change your relationship, doesn't it?

— I think it's easier to change when you're a daughter.

Because?

— I will go into a garden.

Let's see…

— Some mothers of a certain generation, if you take away the role of mother, are left with nothing. That's why they don't want to change the relationship. And daughters, at least, have grown up with certain tools, in a world where it's normal to go to therapy and reflect on these types of relationships.

And the daughters want to change her?

— There are people who demand independence, but then, for whatever suits them, they're back to being 10 or 15. And they need, for example, a Tupperware from home from their parents. It's often the daughters who want to maintain this idea of the omnipotent mother who can do everything, who solves everything, and who is always there.

And doesn't all this happen to children?

— Much less so. And in all the interviews with women with siblings, they admitted that the friction that exists between mother and daughter isn't theirs. This happens for various reasons. If we generalize, mothers demand less from their younger children, and it makes the relationship easier and more peaceful. They see them as adults sooner. And ultimately, the caregiving is feminine. When mothers need to be cared for or listened to, who do they turn to? Their daughters.

Talk about the concept of sonshipWhy do you think it's important?

— All relationships have their name: fatherhood, motherhood, brotherhood... and I asked myself: "Is it possible that there is no concept that includes them all?" What is not named does not exist. If we do not talk about female prostituteIt's hard not to repeat the same patterns over and over again. I'm not talking about channels that are obviously harmful, but those gray areas. Things we don't allow in a coworker or a friend, but with a mother, people say, "Come on, it's the mother."

It is that the mother represents unconditional love

— And that's why you owe her too. It seems these are relationships that can't be questioned. Do you have to love a mother just because? That's why I wanted to analyze it.

And he dedicates the book to his mother

— "My mother, after all," yes. She's someone I've been able to talk to about these issues, and it's a way of saying, "Look, we've done what we could and how we could."

I mentioned romantic love earlier. And your latest novel, in fact. The accident It's about love. Is love an accident?

— Falling in love, yes. It often happens unexpectedly, untimely, and even unwanted. Love… I don't know, for me it's different, something that lasts longer.

He says that when we fall in love we invent the other.

— And ourselves, and the future.

Why were you interested in explaining falling in love?

— I'm surprised that it happens in such a similar way for everyone. It seems like you suddenly lose all clarity. And I think there's a lot of talk, or a tendency to think, about what happens next. I mean, in great love stories, there's a process. And it seems that falling in love has no value in itself.

The vacation process, living together, the dog, the children.

— It's as if without these phases, it wouldn't be interesting to reflect on the relationship. And since we seem to be required to follow these guidelines, deep down we're waiting for them and always projecting them. And these are stories that are sometimes embarrassing to tell; they don't seem important. Sometimes these unlived stories require mourning; they are important and can leave a mark.

In the novel, the characters have no names.

— I was interested in explaining that moment when everything seems to be swept away. And it didn't seem relevant to me whether the person was 20 or 40 years old or what their name was.

Do we learn from accidents?

— That's what the book is about, isn't it? I think it's pretty inevitable, which is why it's called that. It's like when you're driving down the road, and when you see the car from outside, you say, "It's going to be a mess." But often, the person driving it has a harder time seeing it. And that's why we keep repeating it.