FRUTO, livre ebook

Mothering always comes at a price, paid by women regardless of their means.

"Daniela Rea's Fruto is a calm room late at night where women gather to talk: with their stories and their words they take care of each other and then, by sharing that, they care for all of us."—Miriam Toews, author of Women Talking

"This transformative book is the product of eyes that see across generations, ears that truly know how to listen, and a mind that understands the complexity of systemic forms of violence. Daniela Rea's brilliant, polyphonic imagination casts the philosophy of care in an entirely new light."—Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive: A Novel

After the birth of her first child, the relentless work of motherhood left award-winning Mexican journalist, Daniela Rea feeling overwhelmed, despairing, and afraid of losing her identity. She took up the tools of her trade and began a series of interviews with other women, some mothers, some caregivers. As she listened to their experiences of providing care for others, sometimes under extreme circumstances, she began to find a place and a meaning for her own story.

Fruto examines the personal and social contradictions of care. Fourteen voices weave in and around Rea's own, punctuated by diary entries from her first days of motherhood and reflections on her upbringing that are sparked by a lengthy interview with her own mother. Throughout, she engages with an international women's chorus of philosophers and feminists, poets and essayists, and the result is a compelling page turner that chronicles a journey of listening in search for meaning.

When my first daughter was born, and despite the fact that my mother, my sisters, my partner, and my girlfriends all accompanied me, I felt devastated. Raising a child cornered me in a dark place while the outside world demanded that I reclaim my identity as a journalist. To understand my new reality, I did what I know how to do: journalism. How do I interpret the world? Through the experiences of other people, by listening to them and understanding how their individual stories find a place and take on meaning in the world where they live. Hearing other women in order to hear myself and find common ground.

And so, in the midst of this devastation, I began to seek out and interview other women confronting motherhood. Listening to them made me think about how I was mothered, and that lead me to interview my mom. Soon, I came to realize something obvious: that the stories of caring for others cannot be reduced to mothers, they involve all of us women. This is not a book about motherhood. It is a book about being cared for and caring for others born of the premise that not every woman is a mother, but we have all nurtured and been nurtured.

This is a transgenerational book: grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and sisters all participate in it. There's Jenny's story, a teenager who threw a pot of boiling oil on her father's back to save her mother. And Rosalba, trying to raise her daughter free of the abuse with which she was raised. And Avelina, who constantly dreams of an abandoned baby due to the feeling that she didn't take care of her children. And Mónica, who sifted through a pile of worn-out dresses, to choose the one that would clothe her mother's body after she died of suicide.

There's Channi, who became a mother again, when she had to raise the children of her disappeared daughter. And Betsy, who plays with the children of her murdered aunt. And Mariela, who raised the son who was the product of a rape. And Fernanda, who learned to protect herself from abuse through carrying out school pranks. And Laura, whose mother cut off her long braids because she didn't have time to care for her. And Alejandra, who cared for her sick mother as she died.

The book takes place in a Mexico where violence against women is expressed through disappearances, feminicides, endangerment and constant, daily assault on life.

Fruto began as a whisper and then became an incantation by and for women who care for others and have been cared for ourselves.

***

Where does my story begin? I asked Rosario, my mother. This is the story she told me.

To know your story, I should first tell you mine.

I was born in Irapuato, in the mid-fifties. I'm the daughter of Imelda and Luis, also born here in Irapuato.

My parents met in the El Águila cigarette factory, one of the first businesses established in Irapuato. That's where they made the famous Faros brand cigarettes, and that's where they became a couple. They both took part in the employees' attempt to form a union. The company fired my father and a number of other workers, but not my mother. They needed her; she was a very good administrator. Sometime later, they married, and my mother quit the factory and dedicated herself to the home.

My father adored photography and after leaving the factory, he made it his profession. He built a darkroom in the house, which we called the laboratory. It had a photographic enlarger, trays, and chemical solutions. It was a fascinating place that was not off limits to us, his kids. Our fondness for photography started with him. I grew up in a house made of adobe and scrap materials, vines climbing over the walls and flowers filling the porch. It was a big house, with colorful floors, with patios and hallways and a big yard. It was the scene of many adventures and games between me and my brothers, but also with cousins and friends. Pomegranate, American pepper, and zarsigüil trees all grew there. It was paradise, and in the center of it all, there was a grand mesquite tree with a swing where my mother once tied me with a rope so that I would stop misbehaving while she was hanging out to dry the clothes she had washed.

I was the only girl out of seven kids. My mother was very meticulous with how she taught us about women's roles. In other families, girls were taught to mainly serve the men. At dinner, for example, they would serve the men first, and then eat after them. Our house was not like that. My mother was somehow a feminist. She taught my brothers that women were not inferior to them, and they learned to protect and support me. One time, when I was about ten years old, we were playing a restaurant game and one of my brothers said, "Give me some tacos." And my mother, upon hearing that, came downstairs from her bedroom and said harshly, "Don't speak to your sister like that. Your sister is not your slave; she's a woman and you will respect and take care of her."

I was a well-loved and happy girl. Besides being the only girl in the family, I was a pretty, with long hair, black eyebrows, and honey-colored eyes. I was studious, restless, and cheerful. My mom was dark-skinned and my paternal grandmother—a white woman who was very pretty—always reminded her of this. A neighbor suggested that my mom apply Dr. Bell's Skin Ointment to lighten up her complexion, but my mother never paid her any mind. She liked her skin color.

In my adolescence, I developed acne and became shy and withdrawn. My mother always made efforts to take me to the dermatologist and treat me with natural remedies.

Even though we faced hardship at home and my mother had to manage our spending on a day-to-day basis to feed her seven children, she shielded us from the financial difficulties we faced. We took daytrips to the countryside, to the river. We received gifts for Three Kings Day, which we shared among all seven of us, and we celebrated our birthdays. My mother made my dresses, and she never wanted us to work while we were small kids. She had to work as a teenager because my grandfather, who was a railroad worker, went blind. My grandmother stayed home to take care of her husband and four children while my mother, being the oldest, took on the responsibility of providing financially for the household. So, she dropped out of school and got a job at a furniture store when she was fifteen. My mom wasn't as upset about having to work as she was about being forced to quit school. She didn't want the same thing to happen to her children and so, with a lot of effort on her part, she always encouraged us to study. Our education, both at home and in school, was the most important thing for her.

My house was always full of life. With seven kids, one or two of them would stay home while the others went to school. My father worked from home, and we all sat together at the table for lunch and dinner. There was always an extra plate ready for the friend stopping by to say hello or the stranger knocking on the door to ask for a bit of food. The after-dinner conversations were long, and that was when my mother was able to be more her own woman than she was our mother. She debated with our father, shared her points of view, she and rebelled against the supposed submission of the housewife. They woke us up in the mornings with classical music and at night they sometimes played huapangos, sometimes the Glenn Miller Orchestra. I don't remember seeing them kiss in front of me, but they would hug and talk sweetly to each other. She called him Hueso, Bone and he called her Meloncita, Little Melon. They were passionate about discussing history, politics and music. My father played the guitar and my mother sang. That's how we spent our afternoons. As we grew up, we played the guitar and sang together as a family.

I graduated from elementary school at ten and my parents decided not to take me to the public middle school because it was coed. So, I continued going to the private girl's school, studying business. One day I heard my parent's talking about my future and I told them I didn't want to work in an office: I wanted to be a teacher.

I mostly learned to be a woman by watching my mother: a hard worker, disciplined, intelligent, a good administrator, creative, religious, talkative, joyful, always attractive and caring for her family. She always sang as she went about the household chores. She sang for us and for herself. Through her we learned to love music. My mom was always put together, tidy, and well-groomed. She didn't wear any make-up beyond lipstick. My mom would go over our homework with us while she ironed. A mom devoted to her husband and children, a mom who thought of others first, who made sure her kids and husband were doing well, the house was neat, and the family all well. Knowing we were all good made her happy.

And that's how I configured myself, as a mother.

Now, I ask myself to what point I configured myself as a woman. I'm not sure. I didn't know my mother as a woman until I grew up, as a young adult. Before that, I knew the mom-mom, the mom-wife. Until I became a young woman, I hadn't thought about the difference between being a woman and being a mom.

"Configure oneself," I hear my mother say. Like machines that are programmed. Be configured, programmed, have a destiny. My mother was born and was programmed: you will be born and will birth daughters, configure them to grow and birth daughters who birth daughters who birth daughters until the end of time.

I studied at the teacher's college and at the same time worked at Forest Kindergarten, a place with vast gardens that filled with the dry leaves of the trees. It was literally a forest.

When I turned twenty-two, I got married. I don't remember it being a difficult decision; I wanted to marry your father. It was what was expected, what had to be done. I made myself as a woman, a wife, based on what I saw in my mother at home. Through her I learned the role I play once I married my husband and had my children. I remember that when I was going to get married my mom told me, "Never go to sleep with rollers in your hair or creams on your face."

When we got married, I was teaching at a telesecundaria, a distance learning middle school, and my salary was a little higher than your father's. We decided it was important for me to keep working in order to cover all our household expenses. I thought this was a good idea because that way I would be able to contribute financially and also practice my profession. That's how I realized that I could be the woman of the house, attentive to the well-being of her husband and children, and I could also be a career woman.

I got pregnant a few months after getting married and we had Caro. I was thrilled about my pregnancy. We spent my maternity leave in my mom's house. While my mom taught me to be a mom, I embroidered diapers for my daughter. I took care of her, breastfed her, watched her, delighted in her, kissed her. She was so pretty and I did all this joyfully and enamored.

I don't remember asking myself: what am I going to do, what will become of me, or will I become invisible? It was understood: "You are here for your children."

He was hardly around. He spent all his time at work and on political activities. I compensated for that absence by taking care of my parents and my six brothers, who were all still single. They all helped me get around, look after you kids and take you for walks. When we went out as a family with your father, I felt safe by his side. We had fun, especially when you all were between two and six years old.

He, my father. His words don't have a place here. This is my mother's story, or at least the story that she tells me and that I learn to listen to. I don't feel capable of listening to my father's story. I don't know if I'm ready. How to listen to him from his own hurt and not from the hurt I inherited from my mom? In this book I will not use one of the basic precepts of journalism: contrasting perspectives. I will not contrast my mother and my father's perspectives. I will not refute nor confirm them. I assume the responsibility of not asking my father for his. Of taking my mother's side, as the mother that I am for my daughters.

Over these past few years, I have tried to build my own relationship with my father, one that belongs to us both, father and daughter, one that is outside of this equation with my mom. My dad took me with him on his work trips when I was still too young to go to school. He had me climb hills and wrap my arms around trees to feel their strength. He gave me a book about the philosophy of law when I was in middle school because he wanted me to become a lawyer, like him. He took us to Gloria Trevi concerts because he had a crush on her. He played music by Caruso and Santa Sabina to expand our musical taste and he took us to try peyote when we were teenagers to teach us that there were many ways to know and understand the universe. And one day, when I went to college, he taught me that I can make mistakes and that problems will never be bigger than I am, as long as I understand that this "I" is not as important as I had been taught to believe.

Over these past few years, I've tried to build my own relationship with him, but this isn't the place to write about it.

A year and a half later, our second child was born: Luis. We felt so happy when he was born. He looked like your father.

Then I started to feel a bit distressed about getting pregnant again. I didn't use contraceptives because my doctor, a woman, recommend that I not for health reasons, and because they went against my convictions about abortion. We tried some natural methods such as rhythm, to try and not have my pregnancies be so close together. And yet, there was no pleasure without distress. Distress about the responsibility to get pregnant, a responsibility that I felt was mine and mine alone, and at that time I felt a bit lonely.

The methods I tried didn't work, and I had two more daughters.

I was one of those two unplanned daughters born of my parent's marriage.

"And yet, there was no pleasure without distress. Distress about the responsibility to get pregnant, a responsibility that I felt was mine, only mine, and at the time I felt a bit lonely," my mother had told me. I imagine her when she got pregnant with me. She would have been about twenty-six years old, ten years younger than I am now as I write this. At twenty-six, I had decided to have an abortion and was working for a newspaper in Mexico City. It occurs to me that we are very different women: I left home to go to college, I didn't consider myself religious and, even though I felt afraid and guilty and did so in secret, I said "no" to a child occupying my body. Or perhaps not so different: deep down, just like her, I assumed that at some point in my life I would get together with a man and make a family.

As the woman I am now, I think about my mother at twenty-six as one thinks about a younger sister. I imagine entering a room and finding her there, lying down next to her on the bed, caressing her hair and face and telling her softly… what? That everything will be fine? That she should be brave and not have more children? That she should decide not to have me? Is bravery what she needed?

Womb.

From which I was born and to which I return.

You, mother, received me, even if you didn't plan for me.

You gave me refuge in your womb while you prepared me (yourself) for life: there will be nights when you fall asleep while your children speak to you; there will be trips with no music and no return; there will be empty kitchen cupboards; there will be fear, loneliness; there will be shame.

There will be tenderness and caresses and love.

There will be a home that you, mother, will build beneath the shadow of any tree.

I, in turn, promise you: Never again, mom, will you be alone in life.

Despite all this, despite all that could go wrong having two more children that you did not plan for, I had a happy childhood.

I grew up nursed by breasts that dripped sweet, warm milk in the shower. I grew up in my mother's arms and hearing my grandmother singing beneath the tangerine tree in her yard. I grew up with my older sister and brother while my mom breastfed her youngest daughter. I grew up laughing in the folds of the wedding dress she kept in my grandmother's closet. I grew up playing hide and seek in my grandfather's darkroom. I grew up on the outings to the La Purísima Dam, birthdays spent in the Santa Rosa de Lima Mountains, days being out in the countryside next to the irrigation canals that ran parallel to the highways of the Bajío. We stayed at hotels that had swimming pools, and we built campsites in the yard. We didn't have any money for vacations, but she was the only one who knew it. And she kept it a secret from us.

I grew up drawing constellations across my mother's back when she collapsed, exhausted after coming home from work. I grew up with empty cupboards ("the bread she gave us had tears in it," Nellie Campobello wrote of her own mother) which my mother filled with tenderness so that we wouldn't notice. I grew up clinging to her legs so that she couldn't run off with some possible boyfriend. Because, who does a mother belong to if not us, her daughters? I grew up along the twenty-eight miles of highway between Irapuato and Guanajuato, where we so often accompanied my mother to work, listening to cassettes of the Dire Straits, Rod Stewart, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Beatles. We kept travelling that same highway, her driving us, her daughters, and then her daughters' daughters. Her, all ours.

Writing about my mother makes me wish I could be a daughter again.

I write and affirm: ever since I became a mother, I need to be the daughter again.

I was thirty-two years-old when my first daughter was born. I had my second daughter when I was thirty-five. By then, I had been a reporter for a little over fifteen years. The image of motherhood that my mother and grandmother instilled in me had been filled out by other maternities I'd witnessed as a journalist: migrant women leaving their children in order to provide for them, women who watch their children leave for the border, women searching for their disappeared children, imprisoned women unknown to their own who accuse them of abandoning them, mothers of hired killers hoisting their sons' guilt, day laborer women who strap their children to their backs as they harvest the fruits of the earth, women working the poppy fields who don't know how to write their children's names because teachers don't work in such remote areas, women who as sisters take care of the smallest children while their mother goes off to the sweatshop. Working women, orphaned women, women whose daughters were torn away from them. For almost all of them, beginning with my mom's maternity, it seemed as if a mother's struggle, sacrifice, and love were never enough. There was always something lacking, these women always seemed in some kind of debt. They were shells of women.

"Our mother was all we had. And all she had was our hungry, thoughtless, heartless mouths," wrote Nellie Campobello as if she were speaking of me and my siblings, as if she were speaking of my daughters, of the daughters of all these women. And I cry: yo lloro. Llorar, this Spanish verb shares the same root as llover (to rain): to fall, happen, allow yourself to arrive, always in abundance. I cry and I rain for my mother. Or for myself. Or for all of these women.

And for my mother, who cooked at dawn to have our meals ready before waking us up, taking us to school, going to work, perhaps falling in love and then coming home at night. For Noemí, who, to provide for her son, had to abandon him and cross one, two, three borders and find a job before the three sacks of powdered milk she left for him ran out. For Jocelyn, who killed her partner when, after enduring so much violence, he threatened to kill their daughter and now lives behind bars, far from her daughter. For Leticia, who watched her son surrender to those who would disappear him in order to save his younger brother. For Sol, who knew that the only way to save her children from hunger and humiliation was to take their lives and her own. For Rosalba, whose small daughter takes her hand and tells her that everything will be okay. For Avelina, who raised her mother's children, then her own, and theirs; as well. For Mónica, who forgave her mother before she committed suicide. For Jenny, who protects her mother from her father's abuse. For Channi, who knows that her daughter did not leave home willingly because she was breastfeeding. For Mariela, who knows that love isn't enough to raise a child. For Betsy, who tries not to cry in front the children of her aunt who was murdered. For Fernanda, for whom home meant abuse. For Laura, who leaves her home and children to take care of other homes and other children. For Alejandra, who took care of her siblings after her mother's death. For Carmen, who was a lifesaver during my puerperium even as she struggled to stay afloat amidst domestic violence and raising her own children. For every one of them, whom I met during my work as a reporter before I had children, and for every one of them to whom I return now with two daughters in tow, connected to them through my own motherhood.