Very young, Semina expresses her desire to become a mother, without neglecting her career, economic independence and sharing the burden of care equally with her future partner. In her testimony, Semina tells how her and her friends share views about motherhood and the difficulty of talking about many topics with previous generations: for many people, in Albania, topics such as sex, gender identity, abortion, periods are still taboo.
Testimony realised for the Mediterranean Women’s Archive project with the contribution of Mediterranean Women’s Fund – Fonds pour le femmes en Méditerranée.
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Ecco la trascrizione completa del video:
SEMINA: «Hi, I’m Semina, I’m from Albania. I like volunteering and playing sports, especially volleyball and also in the future I want to work to protect human rights, mostly women rights and also work with different organisations with teenagers and different stuff.
So, in the future I want to be a mother, I like… I love being a mother, but first I want have a career, first finish my university, then have a career and then I want to be a mother.
I don’t care if I don’t have a husband, but I want to be a mother so bad. I want to be a mother because I love teaching my children the proper way that some kids don’t have a chance. And mostly I want to have my own children and also adopt so some other children have the kindness of having a parent and also, I don’t know, I love the idea of a child.
I want to be a kind mother mostly. I don’t know if I will be always kind because I’m like a little bit strict, but I know I will be like the type of mother you always have the chance to talk about anything without caring if she will judge. And also, the type of mother who all the friends go to talk to, mostly like my mother. Everybody, every one of my friends love her and I also love her and that’s the type of vibe I want to give the type of woman who you can go and you can talk about anything without feeling the pressure of getting judged and not being understood.
I definitely have the idea of like a working mother because I want to make my own money, I want to make… I want my kids, especially my daughter to see that her mother works and she brings out the part of like women can work, women can make their own money and she doesn’t need a man. But… we don’t need lots of money from me, I see myself as a house mother, but mostly working mother.
I just think… For the moment this is my idea, it may change in the future, but for this moment I really like this, and the idea of university and work. As my parents always had the idea that a woman should work and have her own money, and that she does not need a man because a man can leave you at any moment and you need your own money. That’s the part where I see myself as a working mother, but the part of being like my mother just comes with my nature of loving kids and being like a caretaker of my friends and everybody that just comes with me.
I talk with my friends about this all the time, so I always told them about my idea of having a child. Sometimes I talk about having a child right now, being a teen mother but it’s just a joke we have with each other.
Most of my friends like to be a mother too, but some they don’t like that and we talk about why we love having a child and why we don’t, and we both like agree with each other. Each has been like for me, girls, women who don’t want to have child it’s like really understandable. And I don’t know if life comes that way, I might not have children myself, but the idea of having a child is so nice to me and so good. So, for me and for some of my friends, we have that idea of having a child. we love that.
One of my friends who doesn’t want to have child, she’s very close to me, she talks about not having a child because she want to pursue her career and she wants to travel as that’s what she want to be in the future and she wants to make lots of money and she thinks that a kid will stop her from having all of that, because like she wanna be like a millionaire and I think a kid might stop one or two years for that and she wants to be like free all the time. So, I think that’s her reason mostly.
So, I think a house should be… the house chores should be taken care by husband and wife. It’s not only about like my work, I’m not a woman that doesn’t mean… I am a woman that doesn’t mean I need to take care of the house and I expect my husband to do the same, to do 50/50 with the house chores. And if I have a husband who doesn’t do all the house chores, why do I have a husband in the first place? Like I love him and stuff but I don’t need to take care of the whole house myself. I discuss this with my mother all the time and she is like: in Albania household women do all the house chores. So, it’s like really strange for me because I don’t see myself doing house chores for other people So, for me it’s really weird because I don’t see myself doing that. And if I… thought I will do that only for my kids when they’re little, but even when they grow up, they will do the house chores too. And for that part, my brother does… Why men… When my brother does the house chores, which I kind of force onto him, my mom is my mother is like Why are you doing that to him? He’s a man and stuff. But I always believe that men and women should do the house chores. So, I think it’s really strange that women nowadays do that. But it’s their choice. So, I don’t want to… I can’t interfere into that part.
I know my grandmother from my father more and she was like a more liberal woman. She liked to work, she always told us she wore pants to work, she rode a bike, which was really strange in Albania in the years she was young. But what changes really is that both my mother and my grandmother take care of the whole house and they do the house chores which is like strange for me because I always encourage men to do the house chores too. So, I think that’s the biggest change from the old part. Also, the clothes we wear. I would say that because back in the days my grandmother wore like long skirts, like bigger pants. If she sees me wearing a crop top or something she would be like a little bit worried. My mom is like way more like liberal, but she’s still like, why are you wearing but I see myself like a woman can wear anything she wants and without being like judged or anything like by society, mostly men. That’s the biggest change, but also like choosing the husband.
My grandmother knew her husband like a month or two. I don’t know, I am not sure. My mother knew my father like a year, but I know I need to know my husband more. Because today is like really strange to get married like in a year for me. For me, everything is about like my perspective. And these are the biggest changes, like change which comes from like the years like not… a bigger change because living like with women who are a little bit liberal, a girl needs to be more liberal than them. But that’s all I don’t know.
When I talk with my friends about abortion, sex and sexual needs and everything I’m more open especially with woman friends they are way more open. But also, with male friends they’re starting like to get more open than before. If I asked in like 9th grade, they would be like… “we don’t talk about that”, but now in 11th grade they are more open. It depends on the boy also and how his family was raised. But talking with friends is like way easier and we can judge every situation what’s happening around the world and we can talk about that. But if we talk about like parents, they’re like: “what are you talking about?” especially when you are with your mother and your father, with your mother, you can discuss anything, but with your father, it’s like a little bit like, oh, why are you talking about that? They have these ideas, especially about periods they say, “why are you talking about that? It’s disgusting.” And we always fight about that. It’s not disgusting. That’s normal.
And sex, I think is like a little bit like on the top. And I have never discussed it with my father. I think my mother is really open about all of that. And, you know, in Albania, the idea of talking with your father about any of these topics is really weird. Nobody, I think, a little bit of population in Albania talk about that because the generations before they found it embarrassing to even think about that. So, talking it felt way, way out of the line.
So, I think that’s still a little bit coming towards our generations, but we’re passing it a little, little by little every now and then. In school, we don’t have sex education, they don’t even talk about that, even when they talk about like in biology about menstruation, I don’t think I said it right. It’s like boys laughing, teachers like they talk about it, but not like… We get the most information from like social media, from internet and also from like older friends or parents sometimes a little by little now and then, but it’s not in school. School doesn’t even like…. take on, no.
Abortion is a woman’s right to do whatever she wants. I consider abortion like the most normal thing that could a woman do, because if she doesn’t want a child, she can get rid of it, especially the first three months since the kid is not yet created. It’s not a human, it’s a foetus. And I don’t know if I would ever do an abortion. I don’t know if I’d have the heart, but if I need to do an abortion and if another of my friends wants or needs to do an abortion, I’m really open to it. And I really think that no one should put the idea that a law, especially, that woman shouldn’t abort. And I think having a law for it is like forcing someone to do something, to keep something they don’t want. And I think people who don’t want have an abortion, let’s just not have it. Let’s not force it on other people. And it’s not about caring about the child, but it’s caring about the kids who is going to be born, because it’s not a child yet, but more about stopping women from having their own choice.
Talking about LGBTQ community, I really don’t wanna talk about that because in Albania is such a close-minded people who don’t want to talk about that, and even if you talk about it, you’re part of “them”. But everybody has their own mind and own opinion and they don’t have to be part of a group even if they support them or not. But I really don’t want to talk about that because right now is like, we’re young and teenagers and everybody can do anything, like even if you say one little word, they can like bully you or open it to everybody and it’s really weird.»
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