Maria, a love story

"Maria. A love story" define the impact the birth of my daughter Zelie, now 2 years, has had on the life of my neighbour Maria, a 75 year old widow.

Adapting to the new social context of the last decades, the classic idea of the family as an institution is being modified. The basic archetype par excellence in traditional societies of the family made up of two parents (a father and a mother) with various children and an extended family (of different generations) is being displaced. In industrialized societies there is an increasing number of single-parent families with no extended family close by, which is my case. Like many other young, single, parents, I depend on friends and neighbours for support instead of family. Leaving the “door open” to friends and neighbours allows for an intertwining of intimate space and allows new and different family frameworks to form which adapt directly to need and circumstance.

Around the popular and traditional and religious connotation of the name of Maria which is that of my neighbor, I reveal my own questions and secrecy around the theme of motherhood.