Make romance | To be or not to be a mother

Sarah-Maude Beauchesne is at a crossroads. Between her maternal instinct and her passion for writing, her love of family and her thirst for freedom, the thirty-year-old’s heart swings. Have a child or “make romance”? True to form, she has just put her existential questions on paper, engaging more than ever in an intimate story that one can imagine is furiously liberating.

Certainly dizzying, one might even dare to add. “I have never been so stressed in my life for a project,” she confirms, smiling nervously. Yes, I have always talked about myself, but it has always been embellished by TV, a costume, a narrative, a character. There, it’s completely assumed! »

We went to meet him a few days before the launch of Romancein his new nest in the countryside, a pretty cottage in Lac-Brome.

The former “witch of the Eastern Plateau” looks like a fish in water, sitting comfortably next to her fireplace, in a cozy living room filled with soft music and the scent of peace. Here, a few candles, upstairs, her sleeping cat, over there on the sofa, an interrupted reading (the latest Léa Clermont-Dion). “I’m completely happy, really! »

That is to say, writing, asking questions, dissecting your eternal existential ambivalences full time? A little of all that, yes, but a lot more too. Sarah-Maude Beauchesne, who accustomed us to her authentic pen with Slush heart (brought to the big screen by Mariloup Wolfe last summer), then Fork (the web series, inspired by his texts of the same name), among others, returns to us in a sort of logical sequence, with her maternal reflections of the moment, as old as time, but also totally contemporary.

“Talking about motherhood is the most personal topic yet,” she says. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it is directly connected to every aspect of my life. » Think: her relationships with men, her friendships, her sexuality, her relationship with family, and “all my contradictions! », she summarizes, full of self-deprecation. And these aspects are likely to resonate very strongly with many readers (contradictions included!).

Moreover, she dedicates her story very largely “to those who don’t want children, to those who want them, to those who have them and who regret it, to those who have them and who trip, to those who don’t have none and who are suffering, to those who don’t know everything…”

Let’s settle the question here: no, she does not arrive at a verdict at the end of her 200 pages of prevarication. All the doors remain more or less open, and it is as infuriating as it is intended. “All I know, my great certainty, is that writing really helps me move forward. »

We suspected it, but there is more, she adds, to a reflection that Simone de Beauvoir would not deny:

“I say it all the time: I find it hard to believe that I would have so much time and energy to be so authentic in my writing [avec des enfants]. For me, writing is a vocation. »

In the text, Sarah-Maude Beauchesne returns to her childhood, her mother’s very assumed motherhood, then dwells at length on her relationships with men in her twenties, stories that her loyal readers know well. This is because they are not unrelated to her current “ambivalence”, she analyzes with hindsight. “It’s hard to want to procreate when you don’t feel safe. » Because no, his past love stories have not been the most fulfilling, either emotionally or sexually.

In this chapter, the author dares to be totally transparent. “It took me a while to make love to myself,” she said, grimacing. It’s embarrassing to say, especially for a woman who talked a lot about sex in her 20s. […] But I think we don’t talk enough about our dissatisfactions! »

Among other unfiltered revelations, Sarah-Maude Beauchesne wonders if she would have procrastinated so much if she had given herself the “right” to love women. “It’s a question that was non-existent from my birth to my twenties: you had to be straight in Granby in 2010…” And then upon arriving in Montreal, with such a strong circle of friends, she ended up daring the question: “We’re so good at community and communicating, how come we don’t have babies together? »

This was before meeting her current lover, in her early thirties, a new man to whom she became engaged and to whom she promised an uncompromising “romance”.

As she is not close to a contradiction, Sarah-Maude Beauchesne specifies that she knows that she would undoubtedly make a good mother, as she has the maternal instinct, particularly with her friends, that she makes herself a having to prioritize in your life.

“I’m such a person full of contradictions,” she laughs. As proof: “Besides, I want people to stop asking me that question [de la maternité], but I write 200 pages on the subject! »

If she “leans” towards non-motherhood these days, it is among other things because she sees few models around her who seem “to bathe in romance”. She sees in his reflection an almost “militant” gesture. “A woman without children is disturbing. I want to be that woman who challenges social consensus. »

A militant gesture which is also part of her feminist identity, she explains. “It’s proving that my body belongs to me. […] And I can be maternal to others! »

Sarah-Maude Beauchesne can also be maternal for her lover’s daughter: her daughter-in-law. And now, from yet another, and not the least, contradiction, she concludes: “Of course, being in love with someone who is a father and who excels in this role is challenging! »

Romance

Sarah-Maude Beauchesne

Cardinal

199 pages