"Being a single mom does not mean being alone"

• In "If I want: Single mother by choice"

  *

  , which has just appeared in bookstores, journalist Johanna Luyssen explains her journey towards single motherhood.

• An approach that is often stigmatized, single mothers being accused of "selfish", "capricious".

• But the opening of the PMA for all for a few months should in particular contribute to changing the view of these women.

“From a mother daughter, I became the mother of a daughter”.

In 

, which has just appeared in bookstores, journalist Johanna Luyssen explains her journey towards single motherhood.

Because when she felt ready to welcome a baby, she had no man in her life.

A useful book that shows the assumptions weighing on single mothers and their fight to succeed in imposing their choice.

This testimony resonates all the more after the opening a few months ago of Medically Assisted Procreation (PMA) to lesbian couples and single women. 

met the author, between two bottles.

Your book emphasizes the devaluation of single people in our society.

You write moreover: “To be alone is therefore to be nothing”.

How do you explain that we are still there, when 21% of French people over 25 are single in our country?

Society still conveys the idea that it is necessary to “couple” at the age of thirty, even if it means making bad choices motivated by urgency.

As if celibacy were just an absolute scarecrow, a transitory state before the fulfillment that living together would provide.

However, we are sometimes very alone in a couple.

And you can have a very full life being single, including sexually.

We are not a rotten board that will die on its own.

You describe your experience with dating apps in a rather funny way.

Despite their pitfalls, is it possible to do without them today?

Before Covid-19, it was possible.

But social relationships have become complicated since the health crisis, which has increased the use of dating apps.

However, they are purveyors of immense illusions.

It's a kind of perpetual hamster race: you meet someone, it doesn't work, you start over… We remain confined to a role and to our social environment.

And we are tired of having to repeat the same sentences to strangers.

Not to mention the fact that being considered a Milf (Mother I'd like to fuck) by 25-year-old men isn't very rewarding.

Your book clearly shows the difficulty of reconciling a career with a maternity project, which often results in postponing the moment of becoming a mother.

What do you think are the solutions to avoid this?

I've been on Earth for 39 years and I fought to be a journalist, to get a permanent contract, to not depend on someone.

I find it unfair that people came to tell me at 35 that I was late to have a child, that I had made the selfish choice to focus on my career during my first years of professional life.

While it is anything but selfish to wait for the right moment to have a child.

If I had become a mother in my twenties, it would have been a disservice to my child, because I was not ready.

To change the situation, it is necessary that companies no longer placard women when they return from maternity leave, that they fight against the part-time work suffered, that they extend paternity leave beyond what is provided for by law...

The pressure on women regarding their biological clock is enormous.

What psychological effects does this have on them?

This idea that there is an expiration date for them is very violent.

If they are not mothers at 35, women feel a form of guilt.

Instead of this race against the clock, I think it would be more useful to encourage women to have a fertility check-up at this age to find out where they stand.

Why do some see the desire to be a mother when one is single as a whim?

Society advances much faster than politics, religion and cultural representations.

Single-parent families or types of so-called “alternative” parenthoods that are not in the nails of the classic nuclear family, abound.

Society accepts them, but the reluctance lies elsewhere.

If we observe the cultural representations of the family, the patriarchal schema promotes the couple and the nuclear family.

However, families different from this model exist and are not illegitimate.

Laws are also slower than society to recognize other family models, as we have seen with the law on marriage for all or the law opening PMA to all women.

Moreover, no one asks a heterosexual couple to justify their choice to have a child,

What are the other recurring criticisms made of single mothers?

It is not uncommon to hear that it is essential for a child to have a father figure.

That the woman who wants to raise a child alone is selfish.

However, in my opinion, the most important thing is to provide him with emotional security.

And a child can be built with many other male figures than that of his father.

In my life, my friends occupy a more important place than if I were in a relationship.

It's my extended family and my daughter will benefit from lots of different tutors.

Being a single mom doesn't mean being alone.

There are very few models of professionally fulfilled women and single mothers.

How to change representations?

There is indeed Angela in

.

A wonder woman who is an entrepreneur and raises her son alone.

But the models are quite rare!

Single mothers are often portrayed as victims, with some pity.

While we are very organized and very efficient.

Will egg freezing become an increasingly common practice among younger generations?

This will not be a majority practice.

But the more some women will use it, the more they will give the idea to others to imitate them.

In your opinion, what should you tell your child about the story of his conception?

A few years ago, I wanted to have recourse to a sperm donation to have a child, which in the end was not the case.

If I had proceeded in this way, I would have chosen a non-anonymous donor in order to ensure a form of transparency for my child.

Because the secrecy about origins can be haunting.

And in the case of my daughter, I will tell her about her biological father.

How do you manage to carry the mental burden of the family alone?

I have moments of fatigue, like all parents.

Sometimes I have doubts when it comes to making an important decision for my child.

But in these cases, I ask the opinion of my mother or a friend.

Those around me identified that I needed help and often support me.

This is not the case for some women in a couple who are never helped when their spouse does nothing at home.

And like many single moms, I'm financially better off than many of my friends.

Because even if we receive the single parent allowance, APL and we benefit from a tax advantage, the price of housing in the big cities remains a big black spot.

It should be possible to reserve a quota of social housing for single parents.

Will the law opening PMA for all change mentalities concerning the definition of family?

Yes, because this law legitimizes the fact that there are very varied ways of forming a family.

And lesbian couples or single women who did not necessarily have the means to go abroad to have recourse to PMA, will be able to access it.

The fact that Social Security reimburses their health costs symbolically means that the country recognizes their family.

Society

Coronavirus: What positive impact has the health crisis had on your family relationships?

Society

"Yellow vests": Why do single-parent families feel by the wayside?

*

, Johanna Luyssen, Grasset, 17 euros. 

• Books

• Family

• Mother

• Testimony

• Society

• Single

• LDCs

• 0 comment

• 0 share

  • Share on Messenger

  • Share on Facebook

  • Share on Twitter

  • Share on Flipboard

  • Share on Pinterest

  • Share on Linkedin

  • Send by Mail

• To safeguard

• A fault ?

• To print