 |
 |
 |
|
Extracts from the Performance Journal
(…)
There's a child, the child. He is so mine, and yet the most striking thing about him is that he has his own little personality. And it is getting stronger. Yet he is mine. I need to let go of him (unfinished thoughts about allowing the child to be, independent of the Mother). Who is it about? Me or him, my child? Me or them, my children?
(…)
A woman become a mother. Stripped of her identity. I found myself spending numerous hours in front of a computer writing long emails to all of the people who know me from my old/real life. Who knew me, Lena.
I met people from my past and they were only interested in my new role. They observed my new role, the Mother. They all pretended to be interested in children.
Children as props. In Medea, in life.
Accessories. Commodity. Things.
My children? Sometimes.
Other people's children? Always.
|
|
Motherhood is a new world. There are rules. I became a mother and became less of a foreigner. I had a role. Liverpool was more eager to accept me. I joined in.
Still at a Tesco checkout, as a checkout lady, begins the conversation with my baby “Hiya” and as soon as I open my mouth… the accent… the possibility of invasion…. The justification that I am here because I married (all proper) to a British person. Wow, a British person. So it is not like I came to suck up the state's benefits. Oh, no I am not the asylum seeker. Better not say Croatia … nor Yugoslavia …That might give them the wrong idea.
Now, in public I talk to the children in Croatian. It is loud and strange.
No one dares to talk to me. I choose to endure the strange looks. This is much better than justifying my position as a foreigner each time I am invited to open my mouth by an accidental passer-by who casually refers to the colour of my child's hair. Ginger.
(…)
Now I'm a Toddlers' group veteran, with two boys aged 3 and 1. |
|
(…)
21 st century mothers. My first born child in the year 2000. My millennium baby. Motherhood has become a commodity, a full blown life-style, self-indulgence. Each mother I meet is so immersed in this idea of being a mother. The children are divinities. Centre. We all jump around them and yet it is not at all about them. It is about us. We fool ourselves into the ownership of the children.
Why is it so important for “them” to control their children's life fully? What are “we” protecting the children from? Which school, which friends, which snack, which toy, which hat… All organized, all for us. I am under the influence. I am obsessed with motherhood at the expense of my children's well being. I am in competition. I am in! Am I still a foreigner?
(…)
Kids got us together and keep us together. We act against them as we chat over our cups of tea. Let them get along. There's always a super mother somewhere… playing with the kids all the time. She runs and saves my younger one as big boys ride their tricycles towards him. She talks all the time to the child even though the kid is not yet even 6 months. We don't want to be like her. She'll learn. We are women having a chat. There are no kids around…
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
