Mothers who abandon their children are figures that have always called Begoña Gómez Urzaiz's attention. Since she was little she saw them in cartoons, in movies, in books and even in real life. Without even intending to, she made a mental list of all of them and planned to write a report, but very soon she realized that "they were not going to give me the space I needed to expose everything I wanted," she admits to La Vanguardia. . For this reason, she launched into the long format and has published Las abandoneras (Destiny), which has recently reached bookstores.
While it's something she's pondered for years, it was watching Todd Haynes' film Carol, based on Patricia Highsmith's novel, that she caught herself out of her thoughts. “I remember she made me quite uncomfortable. The film was understood to have a happy ending because Carol and Therese ended up together. But it made me think, well, she can't be completely happy, since for that to be possible, Carol is giving up her own daughter. Although I thought that, at the same time I had mixed feelings because I was bothered by my own reaction. I wondered why I was problematizing this fact so much, because I was aware that in order for the protagonist to be able to live her authentic self and her sexuality, she had no other choice but to give in to this blackmail. Over time, I have come to the conclusion that both views can be true at the same time.”
Beyond Carol, in its pages it brings together the stories of other turbulent motherhoods, such as the one experienced by Muriel Spark, Ingrid Bergman, Maria Montessori, Gala Dalí, Doris Lessing or Mercè Rodoreda, among many others. A selection that shows “a range of interesting and very varied cases related, in one way or another, to the world of creation, which is something that interests me a lot […] The idea of the book was to try to empathize and understand what led them to do that. And in the end I don't know if I can come to a clean conclusion”, admits the author.
Nor does he forget at some point to change the focus and put it on the children, analyzing what their lives were like and also looking at fictional characters with whom they can feel identified, such as Pippi Longstocking. “When I saw her as a little girl, I wondered if she wouldn't be better off living with her neighbors Tommy and Annika. And I'm surprised that he reflected on this because it doesn't seem like a childish thought. Pippi's story has a sad undertone and when you know a little about Astrid Lindgren, the author of it, everything adds up.
Beyond the lives and circumstances of mothers and children, Gómez Urzaiz reflects on many other realities that concern us, such as the growing trend of influencer mothers, also known as momfluencers, who regrets that they launch "a retrograde and conservative message that is He presents himself as neutral but has a lot to do with politics” and concludes that his children often become “the new day laborers, since they end up being content and contribute money, because thanks to them the content goes up and the advertising contracts increase”. And on the other hand, there are the migrants, "many of whom have an atrocious history that forces them to travel to another continent to work and for this they must leave their children aside." In the upper classes, on the other hand, "this is more normalized, since it is solved by sending them to a boarding school."
For all this analysis, the journalist has also been self-critical and has shown part of her intimate life, something that, she admits, "has cost me a lot, but I wanted to be on the defendant's bench and not become the prosecutor [...] All the mothers around me, myself included, feel like running away sometimes. It is an almost daily impulse but I was interested in knowing what it was that makes you click and leave yours aside. I think the conclusion could be that they all wanted children but couldn't bear to become mothers." Of course, “they are more judged than men since the fact that they leave, although it is not accepted, is socially understood. Mothers, on the other hand, are required more”.
And this is something he has seen in his many years in the profession. “When I started as a journalist I saw how difficult it was to be a mother, almost incompatible, not only for conciliation issues, but also for inherited ideas installed in the newsrooms. This idea that having a child devalues the exercise of a profession. There are many absurd myths surrounding journalism, such as that it is a priesthood and that there is an extra sacrifice that is incompatible with upbringing."
She assures that "it is striking because journalism is a very feminized profession. In the faculties we are almost all women, in the newsrooms there are more and more women and some are even majority female. But there is not that majority as you grow up the ladder How can it be that this is happening to us? Partly because we have had the reaction of shutting him up. I did it wrong because in my first years as a mother I concealed the existence of my son because I did not want to be devalued professionally. It is very sad that lead us to this. Women who do not finish their sick leave or who get up early to do their eight hours and more to hit the table and show that they are still the same. I am going to travel, to stay late, to make closures and guards. You have to show twice as much as your teammates. It's exhausting".
