Because it is important to remember even the worst moments of motherhood

It’s crazy, this ability that parents may have to forget about. It’s not about forgetting your child at nursery, or forgetting to make an appointment for booster vaccinations with the pediatrician, but rather about forgetting of the worst moments that parents, and especially mothers, can go through, after the birth of their child.

Illana Weizman, author of the book This is our postpartum, feminist activist and sociologist, does not want to forget.

In a very touching post on Instagram, he writes a letter to his three-year-old son, telling him how he feels scrolling through photos of his son since birth and, in a few sentences, describes all the ambivalence of motherhood.

Selective amnesia described by Illana Weizman

In her text, the author recalls her son’s early days, which all parents have known: the first words, the first steps, the first purees, the first smiles, the first laughs, the first birthdays, the first discoveries.

At first moved and nostalgic, she is too quickly struck by everything she might have forgotten, now that time has passed. The fears, the doubts, the frustration, the tears, the broken nights, everything that surrounded this time at the beginning of her son's life.

As she rightly says, she feels impressed “selective amnesia”but also from his “complex and ambivalent motherhood”. The more he looks at the photos, the more he remembers that there weren't just good moments, not just sweet, satisfying moments.

We forget, little by little, the worst moments. Let's forget about postpartum, let's forget about anxieties, let's forget about fears.

And all of this, Illana Weizman doesn't want to forget, even though our brain and body can push us to do so. She wants to remember, “respect for her, for her son and for the mothers”. Remembering all the phases, all these good and bad moments, that make up the entire story with our son.