Andrea, a 30-year-old queer and non-binary performer, reflects on the desire for parenthood whilst grappling with financial insecurity, legal constraints and cultural barriers that make family life an increasingly inaccessible privilege today. Through a vision of love unbound by genetics, they assert the right to self-determination and to forms of care based on freedom of choice and emotional responsibility. By accepting the uncertainty of the future, Andrea ultimately transforms the idea of biological inheritance into a communal “legacy”, built every day through bonds, mutual care and support for their community.
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ANDREA: «Hi, my name is Andrea. I’m thirty years old, and I’m a queer, non-binary person—which means I don’t identify within the gender-binary system. I live in Rome, but I was born in Venice. Half of my family isn’t originally from Venice; they’re from Lombardy. I work in contemporary dance, focusing on the body and somatic practices.
In my personal life, parenthood is a topic I’ve considered and would have been very happy to explore. It was a strong desire when I was 20-25. Later, due to life’s twists and turns, it’s also an idea I let go of. And at a certain point, I also realized that it isn’t actually within everyone’s reach. Certainly due to legal issues, but also a matter of opportunity. It touches on the idea of privilege and luxury, in any case. Both the ability to care for children and the very possibility of having them. For someone who might be a first, second, or one of two fathers, biological or not, it requires a great deal of effort. I’m almost tempted to think that people often say the real, long-term change is cultural, usually. Lately, even when talking to other people who are actually going through this experience, I realize that it’s not a given and that it involves a great deal of effort. I’m sure these people are happy to make that effort, but the law doesn’t help them. Whereas the community around them, the school, classmates, other parents, teachers. Whether it’s the neighborhood or city community, it has proven to be more progressive than the law.
Well, when my desire to be a parent became very strong, it was always clear to me that I didn’t care one bit about whether it was biological or not. I mean, I imagined having a little human being, a boy or a girl, to help shine, to care for, and to nurture. I wanted to do my best to make them feel at ease in the world and not be afraid to be their true selves. Yes, even at the cost of, I mean, at any cost, really. They say sometimes that if you have no enemies, you haven’t done anything worthwhile in life. Even from the perspective of future generations, how do you navigate a clash of ideas? How do you navigate a discussion? How do you handle conflict? How can you apply this to a broader context, both within the family and beyond? What can this reflect? How does the future of the world grow? What do we want to pass on? As values, but not in a moral sense, though. What’s important to you? What do you care about? What do you think is right? I mean, what’s your idea of right? Does it have to be mine? No. Can we talk about it? Absolutely. As often as a person wants. So I imagined a person. I mean, I imagined a person who would be unique in their own way, and I would do my best not to project anything onto them. Even in the case of biological continuation, I don’t believe a child is an extension of the person; I think that’s something we need to dismantle, again, without judgment, but I’m speaking for myself, of course; I don’t claim to represent anyone. As far as I’m concerned, this would have been carried forward, certainly a guiding figure who, however, at a certain point wouldn’t have imposed anything. Obviously, we’re not talking about situations where there are health risks; I mean, in the sense that it’s still a responsibility, it’s not the friend you have a chat with and give advice to. I hope I’m taking that for granted, at least a little.
I was born in Venice to a heterosexual, devoutly Catholic couple, and that pretty much set the tone for my upbringing, both at school and at home. Fortunately, I don’t have aunts and uncles, like everyone else does, who ask you when you’re going to get married or have kids. Maybe it’s also a matter of embarrassment. It might just be my assumption, but I’m pretty convinced that the topic of my intimacy, my sexuality, and sometimes even my hypothetical quality of life is seen as worrisome or strange, atypical. And so perhaps not talking about it saves everyone a bit of embarrassment. I have two sisters and a brother. One of my sisters and my brother are already parents. My brother moved to Denmark for this reason; my sister, on the other hand, is a single mother, that is, she has always been a single mother and still lives in Venice. They have adopted very different parenting styles, diametrically opposed. My sister has raised her daughter to be very independent, and this has certainly been a point of difference compared to my brother, whose children are still young, much younger than my first niece – so they are also at different stages of life. My brother has a more holistic approach, I must say, one that takes the child’s exploratory potential into greater consideration, because in this case we’re talking about a boy, at least biologically. It’s not a matter of passing judgment, because who can claim to be better than another? I mean, in the end, every sprout has its own uniqueness and characteristics, so as Circe says, there are roses that reveal their true nature when placed in a mortar, some when boiled, and others when chopped.
I think my parents were expecting this and I think they wanted it. The idea of passing the torch comes up a lot in our conversations, partly because they’re nearing retirement now, so naturally they’d like to take some time off. Ideally, it’s a wish I’d also like to fulfill, but unfortunately I don’t know how it would turn out, and I don’t even know what role they’d play with a potential litter. I do think, though, that yes, I think they’d want for us what they had themselves, a son or a daughter, so, in a way, that’s a goal they’ve set for us in their minds. But who knows? I don’t know; maybe not, not necessarily. I think it can be achieved in various ways, just as I think you can build a family in various ways, so perhaps there’s at least some room to question it, at least to ask ourselves what it even means to be a grandparent, can I be a grandparent outside of a biological relationship? Maybe yes, maybe I can be family even in a context unrelated to DNA, why not?
I’d also be happy to consider adoption. I mean, why not? And again, why not…? It would certainly be a different situation, since we’d be talking about a little one coming from a different background, who knows what kind, and a thousand possibilities open up. But why not? I don’t see anything shameful about it, nothing to envy, nothing lacking, quite the opposite, in fact.
Being able to freeze eggs is great, but honestly, the fact that we can now freeze sperm is a huge victory in itself. A huge victory for everyone, men, women, and everyone in between. Long live science in this regard. Someone undergoing chemotherapy can preserve the possibility of parenthood. Someone who doesn’t know, and who may have walked this earth for many moons, perhaps longer than others, can still hold onto that possibility. For me, it’s a victory on all fronts, hurray that this possibility exists.
As for surrogacy, well, my thoughts on the matter are sort of non-existent, in the sense that, regardless of everything else, I believe a person should be free. I mean, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that maybe if humans were a little more self-aware, anarchy would come naturally to them and be totally awesome. All right, okay, that’s not the case. But I still believe that the ability to choose is fundamental. This applies to any issue. So, how should I put it, I don’t have an opinion, or rather, I do have an opinion. The opinion is that a person must be free to make that choice. By the way, let’s be specific: this applies both to those seeking surrogacy and to the person who would provide the womb, who should also have the freedom to choose. We know from the news that this isn’t always the case. Unfortunately…
Here’s what I think. A person should be free to make their own choices. Then they can do whatever they want, that’s freedom, after all. There shouldn’t be any moral judgment. On this point, I’m firmly against it. I mean, keep your moral judgment to yourself, if you want. But yes, because no one has the right to meddle in other people’s lives. I mean, let’s be clear. These words are all the rage right now, aren’t they? Freedom, equality, egalitarianism, uniqueness, this and that. But then, “eh but,” “eh but.” But what? So, yes or no?
Among the people I hang out with now, and even those I used to hang out with in the past, the topic hasn’t come up very often. In fact, it’s so rare that the people who have become mothers or fathers are more the exception than the rule. I think I belong to a generation that faces various challenges in this regard, even within heterosexual contexts and relationships. Salaries are low, the cost of living is high, rents are high, finding a place to live in big cities is often practically impossible, and there’s incredible overcrowding, which, as we know, is largely tied to tourism. So there are quite a few cities that are emptying out. Even those who have two incomes still struggle. In fact, many people rely on their parents. It’s a completely different situation compared to what at least my parents or previous generations experienced, it’s the exact opposite. Buying a home was certainly a commitment but a feasible idea. Now, however, even the pay stubs you submit to apply for a mortgage are laughable because, after all, everyone has to… Almost everyone has pay stubs that don’t really reflect what they actually earn, but when applying for a mortgage, you can’t base it on what the employer in question is supposed to pay you under the table, or at least claims to have to pay you under the table, or to have to… I don’t know how to put it, but report it in a different way. So with a net salary of X, the pay stub tells a different story. I mean, it’s all a mess.
I’ve noticed that, both among acquaintances and close friends, we don’t talk much about parenthood. I know people who want to have children, even if not in the near future. I also know people who have made a clear and peaceful decision not to pursue this path. I think we talk about it so little because it’s a distant prospect, or perhaps, at this point in our lives, it’s a desire that hasn’t yet manifested itself with the full force it’s capable of. We talk about it so little, even with those who already have children; honestly, I can’t give a reason, it’s just a topic that doesn’t come up.
Besides “zitella,” which I’ve always heard used to refer to a woman without a husband, and now that I think about it, I don’t think there’s a word like “zitello” anyway. These are words tied to specific places: both Venice, which is my father’s hometown and where I grew up, and Livigno, a small town in Lombardy where my mother is from, though I’m less familiar with the dialect there. No, I can’t think of any words that refer to a non-parent.
Surely the fact that the term “zitella” doesn’t carry a masculine connotation tells us something, it has to. We know that language is a mirror of culture. The more words a language has, the more concepts that culture encompasses; this is already well known. I wonder, in my generation, maybe not having children anymore… Well, I’m torn about how to answer, because it’s true that times have indeed moved on. It’s true that patriarchy is insidious and creeping; it creeps in even where we don’t notice it sometimes, a bit like Christianity, sometimes you realize it’s inside you even if you’ve been doused in holy water. A childless woman, well, I don’t know what that will be like for our generations from now on. Surely there will always be someone who says, “Oh, but the biological clock,” surely, we all have those friends. I can say that I don’t think there’s any difference; we’re people, first and foremost, before being men and women and everything in between and even beyond. So what applies to one person applies to another. I don’t know, I like to think so, that’s for sure. I like to hope that a turning point has arrived. But I think it has arrived, actually. Let’s put it this way: if it hasn’t reached everyone yet, I hope at least the good sense to address certain issues has reached everyone, if nothing else with tact.
When I think about a heritage, or rather, I really like the term used among drag queens “a legacy”, and since I don’t know what material things I’ll have to leave behind, and since, in any case, I’m not currently considering parenthood either as a possibility or, well, as a desire, or a lack thereof, I don’t know how things will turn out. I think one fundamental thing is to leave behind a fond memory; I know it sounds a bit like a cliché, but I’d like to expand on it. Right now, I don’t have any children to pass anything on to. But I like to think that just as a family isn’t necessarily biological, a community can also be a family, and that a legacy can also fall under a communal concept. And maybe that shifts the focus a bit. I mean, people usually think of legacy as a consequence of people passing away. And maybe in this case, instead, the legacy is being built in the present, that is, while the person is still alive. So what can I actually do? What can I do for those who might have children? It’s not like someone who has a child has more of a right than someone else, so… I mean, cool, awesome. And then the species, if we want it to go on, that’s the way; it’s not like there are so many others. So it has more to do with building. Surely inheritance in the traditional sense also has to do with what… but it has more to do with what you build and then leave behind. Instead, I think it’s interesting, if you used the metaphor earlier, the botanical metaphors, that is, the idea of being able to sow in every season and sometimes being able to harvest, sometimes not, sometimes more, sometimes less. Yeah, I like thinking of it that way, cyclical.
What I’d like to say is that… Well, without trying to lecture anyone, because I have nothing to teach. But I think it’s important to keep in mind that parenthood is also an honor, perhaps. At the very least, it’s not something to be taken for granted. So even in moments when a person might forget it, it’s something to keep in mind. It’s the honor of holding the future in your hands. So, good luck to those who choose to do it. Because it’s not easy. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows.»
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