Motherhood

dated 2010-04-06 | posted in columns | topic People | permanent link

I don’t know what Portugal does for unwed, indigent mothers, but I can tell you that my God daughter is lucky to be living in France. Susanna, 18, left this country in September, two months pregnant and poor. She took the advice of the SOS Village in Bicesse where she was raised from age 3, to go live near her father in France. Initially she was afraid: “What if he rejects me?” she said between her tears and fears. But after several phone calls, she got the “go” signal and left on a bus for Paris. Soon she found housing with 40 other unwed and mothers-to -be in Versailles. She lives near her Portuguese father who left this country two years ago to work on the roads outside of Paris. Susanna spends the weekends with him and his street-smart wife, whom she calls Tia and who was clever enough to get Susanna onto the French “system:” The French government gives Susanna over €1,000 a month, a place to live until the baby is three, and will provide nursery care for the baby while Susanna learns French and goes to work after her three month’s post-partum reprieve. I flew to Paris last week to see her and the baby and also to convince her to stay there.

The day after I arrived in Paris, I took a train from Montparnasse Station in Paris and headed for a small village 30 minutes outside of the capital. I reached the station and looked around in disbelief as I stepped onto the platform. Gone was the glamour, the glitz, the posh of Paris. Instead I saw a rural village, a mixed racial neighbourhood with one Portuguese store that catered to the Cabo Verdian and Portuguese residents who live there. I stood in front of the station for one forlorn moment wondering what would happen next. Then, from around the corner, I saw Susanna and her cousin running toward me. Susanna opened her arms and we hugged like family who had been separated (but not forgotten) for a long time.


Where’s baby Clarissa?” I asked. “She’s with my Tia,” Susanna said as we walked 20 minutes in cold, windy weather. Tia’s home consists of one room with a table and six chairs, a stove and sink, with a small bathroom in the corner. In the back are two beds, one with a blue and red curtain around it, and the other a double-sized mattress on the floor. Tiny Clarissa lay sleeping soundly, wrapped in a red blanket on the curtained bed where Tia and Susanna’s father sleep. (He was working the day I visited but called to say hello.) The other bed was for Susanna and her 14-year old cousin. The rest of the morning we talked as the infant slept. Then we ate the tasty dourada carefully cooked by Tia in her small enamel stove. Paris might have the Michelin stars but the warmth around that simple wooden table surpassed any of the glamour in upscale Parisian restaurants. Finally Clarissa cried.

“She’s hungry,” said Tia, who has already had five children of her own. We heated her bottle (Susanna was unable or unwilling to breastfeed, I wasn’t sure which) and soothed the baby into more sleep on the curtained bed. It would take a book to tell you how we shopped for a stroller, diapers and more baby formula at a Carrefour two trains away. Susanna carried the baby in a Kangaroo-style pouch. Tia orchestrated the journey and Clarissa slept peacefully the whole afternoon. Late in the day I returned to Paris full of hope, happiness and renewed regard for the family that Susanna had to leave when she was almost a baby and has now warmly welcomed her back into their lives to help her raise her own child.

patwestheimer@gmail.com