“If I was offered the choice of having a second life, in that life, there would be no child,” says Astrid Hurault de Ligny, mother of a four and a half year old boy.
Shlack. Here. It is said. Assumed. The regret of being a mother. Almost an “R” word, when it is associated with motherhood, in a world where the idea of being a mother is extolled, draped in a candy pink veil. Maternity and regrets? Two almost contradictory notions, almost considered against nature.
Yet it is this taboo that Quebecer of French origin Astrid Hurault de Ligny exposes in the book-testimonial Maternal regret. A raw, but lucid admission, supporting her own difficulty in embracing motherhood and the less brilliant facets of an often idolized status.
It’s a year after the birth of her son, a bumpy twelve-month journey punctuated by difficult breastfeeding, the hospitalization of her baby at three months, postpartum depression, the loss of her job. and several months of psychotherapy, that Astrid decided to admit the unmentionable.
“I can’t really put an exact date on when this happened. But after my postpartum depression, I saw an Instagram post about Orna Dornath’s book, The regret of being a mother. It hit me. Then, during a tense moment with my husband, it spontaneously came out of my mouth: “I regret becoming a mother! »
A key moment, she says, almost an epiphany that occurred in the midst of a pandemic, which allowed her to put her finger on the extreme ambivalence of the feelings that had tormented her since the birth of her son in 2018.
“I adore my son more than anything, but I understand that I hate my role. The role of mother comes with this mental load, this constant preoccupation. Knowing that a being is totally dependent on me remains a constant stress. It’s a feeling, a feeling, it’s really not a choice, ”insists the author.
Even her fully desired pregnancy could not prepare her for what she experienced. Overnight, a serious baby clash is embedded under her skin as a new mother. “I’m a mother for life, and I don’t like everything that comes with that role. Being a mother is still a chore. Even with a lower mental load, I think I would have the same feeling, the same feeling, ”she insists.
Shortcomings inherited from her own childhood, lived in a strict family, certainly played a role in her difficulty as a mother, Astrid confides. But her bitterness also comes from the social construction that surrounds motherhood, set with images of Epinal, infinite bliss and unconditional love. “Society sells us dreams, while the reality is different for many mothers. I felt guilty for feeling so bad,” she wrote.
Loss of autonomy, freedom, recklessness, mourning for the life before and especially for the self before: the regrets of the author scratch the parental inequality in passing. “If I was a man regretting being a father, nobody would have been interested. We do not expect this abnegation from fathers. There is a double standard in parenting,” she laments.
From a perfect parturient, with prenatal yoga, aquafitness and weight training, Astrid sees herself as a different mother, but above all as a disappointed woman. “Being a mother seems obvious. It is not. The children are not the problem, it is the social and personal cost of motherhood in a world that supports little women. »
The liberated word
The output of Maternal regret is part of a movement for the liberation of speech recently initiated by the book by the young Israeli feminist sociology Orna Donath, The regret of being a motherpublished in January 2020. A book that relays the testimony of dozens of women, disillusioned with their maternal role, despite the certain love they have for their children.
Several books, blogs and Instagram accounts have explored this unmentionable maternal feeling in recent years, including @bordel.de.meres, @çavamaman or @monpostpartum, explains Astrid, who in August 2020 created her own Instagram account under the nickname “Ambre to express its reality. The adopted Quebecer then found attentive ears in Quebec and France.
Already, reactions, not always happy, fuse: “You should have thought of it before”, “Assume now! “, “Keep your feelings to yourself”, “What brutality towards your child”. But, very quickly, comments of solidarity emerge, and his confessions resonate with many women.
One of her Instagram posts on maternal regret, shared by Fiona Schmidt, a famous French feminist journalist and author of Let go of the wombthen propelled Astrid onto the public stage.
In June 2021, she recorded an episode for the popular French podcast Bliss Stories, devoted to “unfiltered” motherhood. The interviews follow one another, then the Larousse publishing house then invites him to publish his parental wanderings. But this time, Astrid speaks out with her face uncovered. One ” coming out » which she saw as a form of appeasement, and which caused her le_regret_maternal account to swell to 25,000 subscribers.
“It freed me. I feel like I help a lot of people put their feelings into words. It was therapeutic too. Actually, I don’t realize too much either,” she says.
And his son in all this? What will he think when he discovers his own mother’s disappointment with this relationship that seals them forever? “I will explain to him that there is a difference between love and regret, and that regretting a role does not mean that one does not love. I do whatever is necessary for his happiness, and this personal feeling concerns only me”, insists Astrid.
Will she one day make peace with this role? “I’m better, I assume, I live with it, I suffer less. But the regret remains, and I don’t know if it will fade. In fact, I don’t think I will ever say, “It’s great to be a mother!” It’s my personality, it’s unique to me. »
To verbalize, to share, to relieve guilt, to let go, she says, it is already perhaps the beginning of a remedy for bitter mothers.