Mothers and Authors | The Press

“Being a mother is waking up in the morning, doing your best, then going to bed at night hoping for the best,” Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir wrote in her novel. The improvement. On the occasion of Mother’s Day, we asked three authors from here – Maude Nepveu-Villeneuve, Caroline Dawson and Véronique Grenier – to share with us the way they conceive of motherhood, on a daily basis as in the writing.

Laila Maalouf
The Press

Maude Nepveu Villeneuve

When motherhood becomes creation

Before becoming a mother, Maude Nepveu-Villeneuve had never addressed the question of motherhood in her writings. Same as in his first novel, From scratchshe realized after the fact that there were absolutely no parents.

“Motherhood appeared in my books because it was part of my concerns and what I was going through. I have thought a lot about the subject through writing. In fact, I wrote the books that I would have needed to read while going through certain parts of my life,” says the author and publisher, who specifies that she has tackled taboo subjects, namely “the maternal ambivalence” of this mother who loves her child while wanting to save herself, in The rise, and perinatal bereavement with After Celeste.

Maude Nepveu-Villeneuve remarks that thinking about motherhood has been much more present in Quebec literature in recent years. She thinks of Fanny Britt with The houses, The leaky womanby Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, or even The thread of life, by Elsa Pepin. “We can feel it, there are several authors who want to talk about these darker areas. »

For her part, the two years following the birth of her first daughter were a writing desert.

And even if she managed to ensure that it did not happen again after the birth of her second daughter, “it was often at the cost of tugs and guilt”: “I was thinking about my book while I was playing with my child, and while I was writing my book, I was thinking about my child,” she recalls.

Today, his eldest daughter will be 11 years old and she has become one of his precious creative interlocutors. “When I wrote children’s books, I always went through her, of course. But I even talked to her aboutAfter Celeste and she came up with an idea for me, at one point, that I hadn’t thought of. »

She also seems to be following in her mother’s footsteps, since she is already writing on her own. “It’s a great pride to see her flourish in this. I like that she discusses with me her stories, her characters. She is very secretive, but sometimes she shows us things and in those moments I really feel a special connection. »

Caroline Dawson

The “mother” writing

When she embarked on her novel, Where I land, her daughter had just been born and her son was 5 years old. The writing therefore began for Caroline Dawson once her children had gone to bed, punctuated by possible interruptions. Four years later, they are far from being completely independent, she notes with humor: “If they are hungry, I can’t tell them: ‘Mom is inspired, you’ll make your snack later!’ »

“It means that I can’t go into an epic every day because I can’t write eight hours in a row,” she says, adding that this is one of the main reasons behind the fact that his book is written in fragments. “And in this sense, I may have a bit of a motherly style, as I find in many women writers who are also mothers. »

Caroline Dawson has long thought that she would not have children. It is by observing the way of being with the children of her spouse, who is Swedish, and by living in Sweden that she managed to envisage another conception of parenthood.

“And that shook me up a lot as a Latin American because yes, children are always welcome [dans ma culture], always present, welcomed; at the same time, they are around and no one talks to them,” she adds.

But the way she defines herself as a mother has evolved with each of her children. “You have to adapt and welcome the child according to his personality, his needs, his way of being, and therefore change his way of being a mother. »

When she became pregnant, she promised herself one thing: never to shout at her children. “It’s something that costs me a lot. It doesn’t come naturally to me because I wasn’t raised that way; I have to talk to myself continually, every day. But I tell myself that if I succeed, I will have passed that on to my children and if they ever have children, it will come naturally to them, like to my spouse, ”underlines the one who is recovering from cancer.

Veronique Grenier

Change with “the little ones”

When she created her blog Les p’tits pis moé, Véronique Grenier remembers that it was the time when she felt “overwhelmed” by motherhood. With two young children and a recent separation, the author had the feeling of being completely overwhelmed by everyday life.

“I felt that I was never adequate; I was in a kind of emergency, exhaustion and a need to scream,” she says.

Moments when she said to herself “well, let’s see, I didn’t sign up for that”, she had her fill… Like this unforgettable episode where her children had gastro and lice – at the same time . “They had been really sick and I had to delouse, do the treatments, wash the whole house, throwing up and I was on my own. But we discover unsuspected resources and we get through it. »

Today, less than 10 years later, she can finally say that she feels at peace. Of course, the children grew up. “It becomes easier because they are more independent, because you have more air between everything, because they take care of themselves a little more…” And this, despite the difficulties and the “joys of ‘adolescence’ which are already manifesting themselves (they are 13 and 11 years old).

But her understanding of motherhood has also changed.

“But it happens sometimes that we eat toast for supper and it’s not dramatic because it’s not what they eat every day,” she adds. I think Donald Winnicott’s concept of the smug mother really did me good. »

The “tone” of her interactions with her children has also changed – for the better. “They are no longer just individuals depending on you; as you grow up, it becomes people you develop a relationship with. And I don’t have a fake interest in what they do and what they are. I’m going to read the books they read, I’m going to watch their shows, I’m even going to play their video games with them. I do a sincere immersion in their universe because I’m interested in seeing what they like. And it’s reciprocal because I, too, share with them what I love. »