These are the things for which children (eventually) forgive their fathers:
Going out.
Coming home late.
Smelling of drink.
Reading the newspaper.
Watching the television.
Looking at people on the television with a vague sexual interest.
Not being bothered, much.
Having other important things to do.
These are the things for which children never, ever, ever forgive their mothers:
Going out.
Coming home late.
Smelling of drink.
Reading the newspaper.
Watching the television.
Looking at people on the television with a vague sexual interest.
Not being bothered, much.
Having other important things to do.
When I was in my teens and twenties, it was fashionable among girls to complain about your mother — despite the fact that these women had given their lives over to rear us. It was never fashionable to complain about your father, unless they were very drunk, all the time. At worst, fathers provoked a shrugging silence — presumably because this was what they gave.
So what about New Men? Will we need a new psychology in twenty years for children, now grown up, whose fathers were there half the time, who changed the nappies and sang the lullabies, half the time, or more? Is it possible that in twenty years or so we will find it is the caring father, and not the caring mother, who is ultimately to blame?
I doubt it.
I have met some of these maligned mothers since and it is great fun having a look at them. Some of them, to my surprise, really do seem wretchedly ungiving. But most of them are quite nice. Or ordinary. Or even dull.
A dull mother? There is no such thing. It is odd that, as a group, mothers are seen as a lardy wodge of nothing much; of worry and love and fret and banality. As individuals we are everything. Between these two extremes, where does the person lie?
In my thirties and forties, many of the daughters who gave out about their mothers started going shopping with them, talking about kitchen units, doing all the things that friends might do and more, while the mothers — I don’t know what the mothers did, exactly, but they shifted too. They let their children be. The battle was over. As though each side had fought its way into the light of day and looked at each other to find . . .
Now that I have become a mother myself, it is a great comfort to me to see how most of us come to an accommodation between the ‘MOTHER!’ in our heads and the woman who reared us. The whole process reaches a sort of glorious conclusion if and when the daughter has children herself. ‘Now you understand,’ says the (grand)mother. ‘Now you see.’ This is what they yearn for — as much as any adolescent, they need to be understood. They need an end to blame.
I take the baby home, and watch my parents with different eyes. My father likes looking at small children — just that. He hates disturbing them, or telling them to do anything, or scaring them in any way; he does not seem to believe in it. My mother loves babies — some women don’t but she does — even when they are very new; all raw and whimpering and scarcely yet human. Her love is more passionate than his; I think, she can be almost hurt by it. At any rate I know that this is where my current happiness comes from, that the better part of my mothering is compounded of my mother’s passion and of my father’s benign attention.
A woman asks me, ‘Are you going to have a typical mother-daughter relationship?’ You can tell that she thinks this would be a nice comeuppance. The world loves to remind parents that soon it will all go awry.
I think about this when the baby is eighteen months and every hug contains the idea of squirming away. She will stay on my lap if I sing to her, and she will stroke my face, but if all this loving becomes too damn lovely, she will push or pinch or kick her way out of it, and I think, with some trepidation, of the day she turns fourteen.
She also has a neat line in accident-on-purpose elbow jabs, and great aim.
What about sons. Are they the same?
Anne Enright, ‘Unforgiven’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 152-54.
To so stvari, ki jih otroci (po določenem času) odpustijo svojim očetom:
da hodijo ven,
da se pozno vračajo domov,
da zaudarjajo po alkoholu,
da berejo časopis,
da gledajo televizijo,
da ljudi na televiziji gledajo z nekakšnim spolnim poželenjem,
da se ne sekirajo preveč,
da imajo druge pomembnejše opravke.
To so stvari, ki jih otroci nikoli ne odpustijo svojim materam:
da hodijo ven,
da se pozno vračajo domov,
da zaudarjajo po alkoholu,
da berejo časopis,
da gledajo televizijo,
da ljudi na televiziji gledajo z nekakšnim spolnim poželenjem,
da se ne sekirajo preveč,
da imajo druge pomembnejše opravke.
V najstniških in dvajsetih letih je bilo med dekleti moderno pritoževanje nad materami, čeprav so za njihovo vzgojo žrtvovale svoje življenje. Pritoževanje nad očeti ni bilo nikoli modna muha, razen če so bili ves čas pošteno pijani. V najslabšem primeru so izzvali molčeč skomig – verjetno, ker so se tako odzivali tudi sami.
Kaj pa moderni moški? Bomo čez dvajset let potrebovali novo psihologijo za otroke, ki so zdaj odrasli in katerih očetje so bili polovico časa prisotni ter polovico časa ali več menjali plenice in jim prepevali uspavanke? Je mogoče, da bomo čez kakih dvajset let ugotovili, da bi morali namesto ljubeče matere kriviti ljubečega očeta?
Ne verjamem.
Od takrat sem že spoznala nekaj opravljivih mater, ki jih je prav zabavno opazovati. Nekatere res delujejo presenetljivo brezčutno nepopustljive. Večina pa je zelo prijaznih. Ali navadnih. Ali celo dolgočasnih.
Dolgočasna mati? To sploh ne obstaja. Čudno je, da matere kot skupino obravnavamo kot špehasto gmoto ničesar posebnega; skrbi, ljubezni, vznemirjanja in banalnosti. Kot posameznice smo vse. Kje med eno in drugo skrajnostjo pa je oseba?
V svojih tridesetih in štiridesetih letih so mnoge hčere, ki so prej nergale nad svojimi mamami, z njimi začele hoditi po trgovinah, razpravljati o kuhinjah, početi vse, kar počnejo prijateljice, in še več, medtem ko so matere – v bistvu ne vem, kaj so počele, ampak so se tudi one spremenile. Pustile so jih pri miru. Bitke je bilo konec. Kot da bi se obe strani prebili do luči belega dne, se spogledali in ugotovili, da ...
Zdaj, ko sem tudi sama mama, me zelo tolaži dejstvo, da smo skoraj vse sprejele kompromis med »MAMI!« v naših mislih in žensko, ki nas je vzgojila. Vse skupaj doseže nekakšen veličasten konec, ko in če ima tudi hči otroke. »Zdaj ti je jasno,« pravi (stara) mama. »Zdaj razumeš.« Po tem hrepenijo – kot katera koli najstnica, tudi one potrebujejo razumevanje. Potrebujejo konec obtoževanja.
Dojenčico odpeljem domov in na starša gledam drugače. Moj oče rad gleda majhne otroke in to je vse. Ne mara jih motiti, jim ukazovati ali jih kakorkoli strašiti; v to očitno ne verjame. Moja mama obožuje dojenčke – nekatere ženske jih ne, ona pa jih –, tudi takrat, ko so še čisto majhni, cmeravi in komajda človeški. Njena ljubezen je bolj strastna kot njegova; mogoče celo do te mere, da bi jo lahko prizadela. V vsakem primeru vem, da trenutno moja sreča izvira iz tega, da večji del mojega materinstva sestavljata materina strast in očetova medla pozornost.
Neka ženska me vpraša: »Bosta imeli tipičen odnos matere in hčere?« Očitno bi se ji to zdela dobra kazen. Svet res rad opozarja starše, da bo šlo kmalu vse po zlu.
O tem razmišljam, ko je dojenčica stara 18 mesecev, in vsak objem me spomni, da se mi lahko že v naslednjem trenutku izmuzne. Če ji prepevam, ostane v mojem naročju in me boža po obrazu. Če pa moja ljubezen postane preveč preklemano ljubka, me porine stran, uščipne in se izmuzne. Jaz pa s strahom pomislim na dan, ko bo dopolnila 14 let.
Poleg tega me rada po nesreči namenoma suni s komolcem in moram reči, da dobro cilja.
Pa sinovi? So tudi oni taki?
These are the things for which children (eventually) forgive their fathers:
Going out.
Coming home late.
Smelling of drink.
Reading the newspaper.
Watching the television.
Looking at people on the television with a vague sexual interest.
Not being bothered, much.
Having other important things to do.
These are the things for which children never, ever, ever forgive their mothers:
Going out.
Coming home late.
Smelling of drink.
Reading the newspaper.
Watching the television.
Looking at people on the television with a vague sexual interest.
Not being bothered, much.
Having other important things to do.
When I was in my teens and twenties, it was fashionable among girls to complain about your mother — despite the fact that these women had given their lives over to rear us. It was never fashionable to complain about your father, unless they were very drunk, all the time. At worst, fathers provoked a shrugging silence — presumably because this was what they gave.
So what about New Men? Will we need a new psychology in twenty years for children, now grown up, whose fathers were there half the time, who changed the nappies and sang the lullabies, half the time, or more? Is it possible that in twenty years or so we will find it is the caring father, and not the caring mother, who is ultimately to blame?
I doubt it.
I have met some of these maligned mothers since and it is great fun having a look at them. Some of them, to my surprise, really do seem wretchedly ungiving. But most of them are quite nice. Or ordinary. Or even dull.
A dull mother? There is no such thing. It is odd that, as a group, mothers are seen as a lardy wodge of nothing much; of worry and love and fret and banality. As individuals we are everything. Between these two extremes, where does the person lie?
In my thirties and forties, many of the daughters who gave out about their mothers started going shopping with them, talking about kitchen units, doing all the things that friends might do and more, while the mothers — I don’t know what the mothers did, exactly, but they shifted too. They let their children be. The battle was over. As though each side had fought its way into the light of day and looked at each other to find . . .
Now that I have become a mother myself, it is a great comfort to me to see how most of us come to an accommodation between the ‘MOTHER!’ in our heads and the woman who reared us. The whole process reaches a sort of glorious conclusion if and when the daughter has children herself. ‘Now you understand,’ says the (grand)mother. ‘Now you see.’ This is what they yearn for — as much as any adolescent, they need to be understood. They need an end to blame.
I take the baby home, and watch my parents with different eyes. My father likes looking at small children — just that. He hates disturbing them, or telling them to do anything, or scaring them in any way; he does not seem to believe in it. My mother loves babies — some women don’t but she does — even when they are very new; all raw and whimpering and scarcely yet human. Her love is more passionate than his; I think, she can be almost hurt by it. At any rate I know that this is where my current happiness comes from, that the better part of my mothering is compounded of my mother’s passion and of my father’s benign attention.
A woman asks me, ‘Are you going to have a typical mother-daughter relationship?’ You can tell that she thinks this would be a nice comeuppance. The world loves to remind parents that soon it will all go awry.
I think about this when the baby is eighteen months and every hug contains the idea of squirming away. She will stay on my lap if I sing to her, and she will stroke my face, but if all this loving becomes too damn lovely, she will push or pinch or kick her way out of it, and I think, with some trepidation, of the day she turns fourteen.
She also has a neat line in accident-on-purpose elbow jabs, and great aim.
What about sons. Are they the same?
Anne Enright, ‘Unforgiven’ in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, London: Vintage, 2005, 152-54.
To so stvari, ki jih otroci (po določenem času) odpustijo svojim očetom:
da hodijo ven,
da se pozno vračajo domov,
da zaudarjajo po alkoholu,
da berejo časopis,
da gledajo televizijo,
da ljudi na televiziji gledajo z nekakšnim spolnim poželenjem,
da se ne sekirajo preveč,
da imajo druge pomembnejše opravke.
To so stvari, ki jih otroci nikoli ne odpustijo svojim materam:
da hodijo ven,
da se pozno vračajo domov,
da zaudarjajo po alkoholu,
da berejo časopis,
da gledajo televizijo,
da ljudi na televiziji gledajo z nekakšnim spolnim poželenjem,
da se ne sekirajo preveč,
da imajo druge pomembnejše opravke.
V najstniških in dvajsetih letih je bilo med dekleti moderno pritoževanje nad materami, čeprav so za njihovo vzgojo žrtvovale svoje življenje. Pritoževanje nad očeti ni bilo nikoli modna muha, razen če so bili ves čas pošteno pijani. V najslabšem primeru so izzvali molčeč skomig – verjetno, ker so se tako odzivali tudi sami.
Kaj pa moderni moški? Bomo čez dvajset let potrebovali novo psihologijo za otroke, ki so zdaj odrasli in katerih očetje so bili polovico časa prisotni ter polovico časa ali več menjali plenice in jim prepevali uspavanke? Je mogoče, da bomo čez kakih dvajset let ugotovili, da bi morali namesto ljubeče matere kriviti ljubečega očeta?
Ne verjamem.
Od takrat sem že spoznala nekaj opravljivih mater, ki jih je prav zabavno opazovati. Nekatere res delujejo presenetljivo brezčutno nepopustljive. Večina pa je zelo prijaznih. Ali navadnih. Ali celo dolgočasnih.
Dolgočasna mati? To sploh ne obstaja. Čudno je, da matere kot skupino obravnavamo kot špehasto gmoto ničesar posebnega; skrbi, ljubezni, vznemirjanja in banalnosti. Kot posameznice smo vse. Kje med eno in drugo skrajnostjo pa je oseba?
V svojih tridesetih in štiridesetih letih so mnoge hčere, ki so prej nergale nad svojimi mamami, z njimi začele hoditi po trgovinah, razpravljati o kuhinjah, početi vse, kar počnejo prijateljice, in še več, medtem ko so matere – v bistvu ne vem, kaj so počele, ampak so se tudi one spremenile. Pustile so jih pri miru. Bitke je bilo konec. Kot da bi se obe strani prebili do luči belega dne, se spogledali in ugotovili, da ...
Zdaj, ko sem tudi sama mama, me zelo tolaži dejstvo, da smo skoraj vse sprejele kompromis med »MAMI!« v naših mislih in žensko, ki nas je vzgojila. Vse skupaj doseže nekakšen veličasten konec, ko in če ima tudi hči otroke. »Zdaj ti je jasno,« pravi (stara) mama. »Zdaj razumeš.« Po tem hrepenijo – kot katera koli najstnica, tudi one potrebujejo razumevanje. Potrebujejo konec obtoževanja.
Dojenčico odpeljem domov in na starša gledam drugače. Moj oče rad gleda majhne otroke in to je vse. Ne mara jih motiti, jim ukazovati ali jih kakorkoli strašiti; v to očitno ne verjame. Moja mama obožuje dojenčke – nekatere ženske jih ne, ona pa jih –, tudi takrat, ko so še čisto majhni, cmeravi in komajda človeški. Njena ljubezen je bolj strastna kot njegova; mogoče celo do te mere, da bi jo lahko prizadela. V vsakem primeru vem, da trenutno moja sreča izvira iz tega, da večji del mojega materinstva sestavljata materina strast in očetova medla pozornost.
Neka ženska me vpraša: »Bosta imeli tipičen odnos matere in hčere?« Očitno bi se ji to zdela dobra kazen. Svet res rad opozarja starše, da bo šlo kmalu vse po zlu.
O tem razmišljam, ko je dojenčica stara 18 mesecev, in vsak objem me spomni, da se mi lahko že v naslednjem trenutku izmuzne. Če ji prepevam, ostane v mojem naročju in me boža po obrazu. Če pa moja ljubezen postane preveč preklemano ljubka, me porine stran, uščipne in se izmuzne. Jaz pa s strahom pomislim na dan, ko bo dopolnila 14 let.
Poleg tega me rada po nesreči namenoma suni s komolcem in moram reči, da dobro cilja.
Pa sinovi? So tudi oni taki?
Translation commentary
Lara Kuhelj
This was my first time translating a book excerpt from English to Slovene and I must say that, despite the challenges, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Before translating the text, I was under the impression that it would not pose as many translation problems since the topic is relatively relatable and very familiar to Slovene mothers and daughters. Hence, I was keen on bringing the author’s thought-provoking meditation on motherhood to life in Slovene, as it would bring solace to many women, as well as encourage men to ponder (and perhaps question) all the ideas they have grown up believing.
The translation process began with a first draft I prepared for my teacher to assess. Afterward, I forwarded my translation including the teacher’s notes and corrections to my colleague who also read the text thoroughly and offered her perspective. Next, bearing all their suggestions and comments in mind, I revised the translation before sending over the finished version. Since the potential readers of my translation most likely will not have any contact with the original text, I also decided to ask a family member to read through my section before submitting it because I wanted to ensure the words in Slovene run smoothly.
One of my most significant difficulties was uncovering ways of expressing certain natural and seemingly straightforward English expressions into Slovene, as there were times when I felt the need to add more to the text to ensure it sounded more natural.
Moreover, there were times when I was not sure how to reproduce the exact meaning of the original. When grappling with such dilemmas, I also took a look at the existing translations – especially the one in Czech as it is the one that most resembles Slovene – and discussed my thought process with a colleague. This was an indispensable part of the translation process mainly because I was able to receive an additional perspective that helped me reach a conclusion concerning the challenges I was facing.
Another aspect I struggled with was achieving the right balance between the occasionally colloquial and ironic tone the author uses to describe seemingly common circumstances that hide a much more intriguing layer. When translating, I tried my best to keep the reader in mind to find ways to recreate the overall atmosphere of the original.
This project highlighted the importance of all the stages within the translation process and of having a designated person who reads the translation through aiming to propose potential revisions. Having a fresh pair of eyes, my colleague was able to identify places in the text where I had left out certain elements of the original. As minor as these omissions seem at first glance, they hold the power to alter the meaning of the text, so it is crucial that someone look them over to minimize any potential errors.
To sum up, regardless of all the difficulties, I am glad I participated in this project as it was an excellent opportunity to enhance my translation skills. I look forward to partaking in similar translation endeavors in the future.