Total mothers

When my children were little and I took them to play in the park, I was always surprised to find the same scene: mothers who would get right into the sandbox with their offspring, taking up a huge amount of the little space the children had to roam in the middle of the city; mothers who would climb to the top of the slides, go down themselves to accompany that budding person who now must have serious problems managing life's normal frustrations. So many theories about parenting, so much information, and so much effort to do what we parents of today shouldn't have to do: rob our children of the ability to become resilient by gradually facing difficulties, systematically depriving them of the sense of power that comes from solving problems on their own.

Extraordinary things happen when children are left alone. And better than bad, although there's always the possibility of being exposed to some dangers, of course. I remember solitary walks through the streets near my home, with that sense of mystery that comes from exploring the unknown, even if it was just the stone bridge, even if there were syringes lying around, even if you came across an old man who unzipped his pants to show you his sad, thin frame. It's scary to walk through dark streets on dark winter afternoons, or you had to run away after standing alone against a group that wanted to beat you up. When families had three, four, five children, it was impossible to reach the level of expectation that we parents of today (and especially mothers) have set for ourselves. What housewife always waited for you with freshly baked muffins? Which one dedicated herself to making costumes (and not just for Carnival, but also for Halloween)? It's no longer enough to reproduce and accompany the child in the early stages so they can gain independence; now, to be a good mother, you have to do everything, you have to take care of everything, you have to be everywhere and be everything to them. How frightening! How we expect them not to hate us when they grow up and realize we've robbed them of the ability to develop their own skills. I have images seared into my memory that could be considered traumatic: mothers carrying children's bags like sacrificial lambs in the service of their little emperors, mothers chasing after their offspring down the street with a Tupperware container of cut-up fruit because if they don't eat their afternoon snack, they won't have consumed the portions recommended by the balanced diet pyramid, or even going for a walk. And of course, then we complain about how difficult it is to balance work and family life. And are we surprised? This way of being a mother is incompatible with life itself, let alone with work. But then, when our child asks for a mobile phone with more storage than ours, we give it to them without hesitation because "they're digital natives" and we can't isolate them, we can't go against the times, and so on. We protect them to pathological extremes from the dangers of the physical world, but we leave them alone in their rooms, locked away with the whole world. We distrust the real people we encounter in the few remaining shared spaces (school, the stairwell, the neighborhood), yet we allow them to interact with anonymous strangers whose whereabouts and identities are unknown. I would say that this neglect of parental responsibilities in everything related to the digital world is a natural consequence of the exhausting exercise of intensive motherhood we have practiced since childhood. I would say it's time to let children be children and have their own spaces and empty hours free from the constant interference of the adults who have colonized their childhoods.