How are Geneviève Drolet’s children doing? “They are doing great. They are as cheeky as they are wonderful,” she replies, summarizing in a few words the contrary emotions contained in domestic acrobaticsnotebooks as amazed as they are exhausted from a woman who would like to be able to count on the reception net of a society that would leave mothers to their fate less.
Posted at 7:00 p.m.
“Motherhood overwhelms me to leave room for nothing else,” writes Geneviève Drolet (Chronic sex, panic) on the first page of this sixth book, in which she takes stock of the gap between the motherhood she imagined and the one she is experiencing, as well as the “gulf between my expectation of fairness, my desires accomplishments and the reality in which I live”.
Big question: “Am I a feminist when I would rather mother my children than debate fairness with my lover, when my strong convictions rarely reach his ears? »
It was primarily to overcome the impossibility of dialogue, in which the exhausting daily life of parenthood locked her up, that she began to draw up these notebooks, the first text in which the one who is also an acrobat of high level does not rely on fiction.
“I was in this intense fog of motherhood and I couldn’t discuss these things with my boyfriend. Even if my boyfriend is understanding, we were in a difficult dynamic to reverse,” she explains in an interview about this letter to Monsieur, which will gradually become a letter to all fathers, as well as a letter to herself.
For the love of men
Despite her strong convictions, and despite her desire not to let motherhood define her, Geneviève Drolet quickly realizes when she gives birth to Pigeon, her son who will soon be 6 years old, that motherhood creeps in whether she wants it or not. not in the smallest interstices of his life. The latter is transformed by breastfeeding and the physical symbiosis that unites her to her demanding baby, “a cataclysm in itself”.
And the dad, him? Yes domestic acrobatics appeals so much, it is probably because the man he depicts is far from being the worst father in the world. He’s actually a great dad, by the not-so-high standards by which fatherhood is usually judged, though he seems to harbor little guilt about leaving his family to create a show. or work in the yard. A recklessness that is not without boiling his girlfriend.
Geneviève Drolet was surprised, when she became a parent, to see her couple, which she believed to be freed from traditional gender roles, reconfiguring themselves in a way that sometimes painfully corresponded to them.
“We always think that we are impervious to these dynamics, and I quickly realized that not at all. But it takes work to change those dynamics, and when you become a parent, everyone is tired, you breastfeed, you don’t recognize the person you were in love with anymore. It’s a difficult time to have important conversations, ”observes the one who is also the mother of three and a half year old twins. She laughs.
There are things that I should have discussed with my boyfriend even before conception, but we just said: it’s going to be fine.
Genevieve Drolet
happy mother
Beyond this plea for a more equitable distribution of the mental load, domestic acrobatics is coupled in particular with a condemnation of the over-medicalization of childbirth, a reflection on the impact of motherhood in the trajectory of a designer as well as a celebration of the joys to which children give life.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Genevieve Drolet
This book differs from so many texts on motherhood in that it is in the name of this powerful joy that Geneviève Drolet takes up the cause of a world where work-family balance would be more than a slogan, and where our social measures (like a paternity leave of only five weeks) would carry a less sorrowful conception of what a father is. domestic acrobatics belongs to literature because its author refuses to pretend to resolve its contradictions there: the mother who confides in it would certainly like to have more time to devote to her projects, but nevertheless painfully crosses the hours which separate her from his brood.
I really didn’t have easy guilt before becoming a mother, but beyond the guilt, there is also my desire to be with my children. I was surprised by this! I thought I could drop them off at daycare and say, “OK, ciao, bye, see you in eight hours,” but no, I want to be there for them, with them.
Genevieve Drolet
While admitting that living “on the threshold of invasion”, as is the case during a child’s first years, can cause anxiety and impatience, Geneviève Drolet wonders if the immense expectations placed on mothers – “Multitasking is a myth. I have no choice but to rush a little. – do not exacerbate a perpetual feeling of incompetence.
“I am torn by my desire for accomplishment. It’s clear that I’m proud of myself when I manage to do everything at the same time. But early childhood, it passes in a snap of the fingers and I think it’s a call to slow down. And at the same time, it’s true, there are plenty of times when you get bored with a baby, when you want to do more stimulating things with your brain. But I hesitate less and less to ask myself the question: do I really need to be on the run and not take advantage of my evenings with my children just to do another show? »
domestic acrobatics
Genevieve Drolet
X Y Z
216 pages