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.
Éstas son las cosas que, en la niñez, (eventualmente) le perdonas a tu papá:
Salir.
Llegar tarde a la casa.
Oler a alcohol.
Leer el periódico.
Ver la tele.
Mirar a la gente de la tele con un poquito
de interés sexual.
No poder molestarlo.
Tener otras cosas importantes que hacer.
Éstas son las cosas que, en la niñez, nunca de los nuncas le perdonas a tu mamá:
Salir.
Llegar tarde a la casa.
Oler a alcohol.
Leer el periódico.
Ver la tele.
Mirar a la gente de la tele con un poquito
de interés sexual.
No poder molestarla.
Tener otras cosas importantes que hacer.
En mi adolescencia y en mis veinte, estaba de moda que las muchachas nos quejáramos de nuestras mamás —a pesar de que estas mujeres habían dado sus vidas para criarnos—. Nunca estuvo de moda quejarnos de nuestros papás, a menos que estuvieran borrachos todo el tiempo. En el peor de los casos, los papás ocasionaban un silencio indiferente, seguramente porque era lo mismo que ellos daban.
¿Y qué pasará con los Nuevos Hombres? ¿Vamos a necesitar una psicología renovada en veinte años para esos niños, ya grandes, cuyos papás estuvieron ahí la mitad del tiempo, quienes les cambiaron los pañalitos y les cantaron cancioncitas, la mitad del tiempo o más? ¿Será que en más o menos veinte años nos daremos cuenta de que es al padre atento, y no a la madre cariñosa, a quién hay que culpar al final?
Lo dudo.
He conocido a una que otra madre denostada desde entonces y es divertidísimo echarles un ojo. Algunas, para mi sorpresa, sí se ven como unas egoístas miserables, pero la mayoría de ellas son bien simpáticas. U ordinarias. O tediosas.
¿Una mamá tediosa? Eso no existe. Es raro que, como grupo, las madres sean vistas como una bola de engrudo, una bola de casi nada; de preocupación, de amor, de ansiedad y de banalidad. Como individuos, lo somos todo. Entre estos dos extremos, ¿dónde queda la persona?
En mis treinta y cuarenta, muchas de las hijas que renegaban de sus mamás empezaron a ir de compras con ellas, a hablar de cocinas modulares, a hacer todas las cosas que harían entre amigas y más, mientras que las madres —yo no sé que hacían, exactamente⸺ pero ellas también cambiaron. Dejaron que sus hijas fueran ellas mismas. La batalla se acabó. Como si cada bando hubiera luchado hasta el amanecer y, al mirarse, descubrieran…
Ahora que yo también soy mamá, es un gran consuelo para mí darme cuenta de que la mayoría de nosotras hemos encontrado un punto medio entre la “¡MADRE!” en nuestras mentes y la mujer que nos crió. Todo el proceso llega a una especie de conclusión gloriosa si y cuando la hija tiene hijos propios. “Ahora entiendes”, dice la (abuela)madre. “Ahora lo ves”. Ansían este momento —como cualquier adolescente, ellas también necesitan ser comprendidas—. Necesitan ponerle un final a la culpa.
Llevo a mi bebé a casa de mamá y papá y los veo con otros ojos. A mí papá le gusta mirar bebés, nada más eso. Le choca molestarlos o decirles que hagan cualquier cosa, o asustarlos de alguna manera; parece no estar a favor de ello. Mi mamá ama a los bebés —algunas mujeres no, pero ella sí—, incluso cuando son recién nacidos, casi grotescos, todos chillones y apenas reconociblemente humanos. Su amor es más apasionado que el de mi papá; a veces creo que eso puede lastimarla. Sea como sea, yo sé que de ahí viene mi felicidad actual, sé que mis mejores acciones como madre se componen de la pasión de mi mamá y de la atención bondadosa de mi papá.
Una mujer me preguntó: “¿vas a tener una típica relación madre-hija?” Se notaba que pensó que este sería un adecuado y bien merecido castigo. Al mundo le gusta recordarnos, a quienes somos padres, que pronto todo esto se va a poner feo.
En eso estoy pensando cuando la bebé tiene año y medio y cada abrazo contiene el riesgo de que se retuerza y se aleje. Si le canto, se queda sentada en mis piernas y me acaricia la cara, pero si todo mi amor se vuelve exageradamente empalagoso, me empuja, me pellizca o me patea para que me quite, y pienso, con algo de miedo, en el día en que cumpla catorce.
Además, tiene muy buen tino con esos codazos “medio accidentales, medio adrede” y una puntería tremenda.
¿Y qué pasa con los hijos varones? ¿Ellos también son así?
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.
Éstas son las cosas que, en la niñez, (eventualmente) le perdonas a tu papá:
Salir.
Llegar tarde a la casa.
Oler a alcohol.
Leer el periódico.
Ver la tele.
Mirar a la gente de la tele con un poquito
de interés sexual.
No poder molestarlo.
Tener otras cosas importantes que hacer.
Éstas son las cosas que, en la niñez, nunca de los nuncas le perdonas a tu mamá:
Salir.
Llegar tarde a la casa.
Oler a alcohol.
Leer el periódico.
Ver la tele.
Mirar a la gente de la tele con un poquito
de interés sexual.
No poder molestarla.
Tener otras cosas importantes que hacer.
En mi adolescencia y en mis veinte, estaba de moda que las muchachas nos quejáramos de nuestras mamás —a pesar de que estas mujeres habían dado sus vidas para criarnos—. Nunca estuvo de moda quejarnos de nuestros papás, a menos que estuvieran borrachos todo el tiempo. En el peor de los casos, los papás ocasionaban un silencio indiferente, seguramente porque era lo mismo que ellos daban.
¿Y qué pasará con los Nuevos Hombres? ¿Vamos a necesitar una psicología renovada en veinte años para esos niños, ya grandes, cuyos papás estuvieron ahí la mitad del tiempo, quienes les cambiaron los pañalitos y les cantaron cancioncitas, la mitad del tiempo o más? ¿Será que en más o menos veinte años nos daremos cuenta de que es al padre atento, y no a la madre cariñosa, a quién hay que culpar al final?
Lo dudo.
He conocido a una que otra madre denostada desde entonces y es divertidísimo echarles un ojo. Algunas, para mi sorpresa, sí se ven como unas egoístas miserables, pero la mayoría de ellas son bien simpáticas. U ordinarias. O tediosas.
¿Una mamá tediosa? Eso no existe. Es raro que, como grupo, las madres sean vistas como una bola de engrudo, una bola de casi nada; de preocupación, de amor, de ansiedad y de banalidad. Como individuos, lo somos todo. Entre estos dos extremos, ¿dónde queda la persona?
En mis treinta y cuarenta, muchas de las hijas que renegaban de sus mamás empezaron a ir de compras con ellas, a hablar de cocinas modulares, a hacer todas las cosas que harían entre amigas y más, mientras que las madres —yo no sé que hacían, exactamente⸺ pero ellas también cambiaron. Dejaron que sus hijas fueran ellas mismas. La batalla se acabó. Como si cada bando hubiera luchado hasta el amanecer y, al mirarse, descubrieran…
Ahora que yo también soy mamá, es un gran consuelo para mí darme cuenta de que la mayoría de nosotras hemos encontrado un punto medio entre la “¡MADRE!” en nuestras mentes y la mujer que nos crió. Todo el proceso llega a una especie de conclusión gloriosa si y cuando la hija tiene hijos propios. “Ahora entiendes”, dice la (abuela)madre. “Ahora lo ves”. Ansían este momento —como cualquier adolescente, ellas también necesitan ser comprendidas—. Necesitan ponerle un final a la culpa.
Llevo a mi bebé a casa de mamá y papá y los veo con otros ojos. A mí papá le gusta mirar bebés, nada más eso. Le choca molestarlos o decirles que hagan cualquier cosa, o asustarlos de alguna manera; parece no estar a favor de ello. Mi mamá ama a los bebés —algunas mujeres no, pero ella sí—, incluso cuando son recién nacidos, casi grotescos, todos chillones y apenas reconociblemente humanos. Su amor es más apasionado que el de mi papá; a veces creo que eso puede lastimarla. Sea como sea, yo sé que de ahí viene mi felicidad actual, sé que mis mejores acciones como madre se componen de la pasión de mi mamá y de la atención bondadosa de mi papá.
Una mujer me preguntó: “¿vas a tener una típica relación madre-hija?” Se notaba que pensó que este sería un adecuado y bien merecido castigo. Al mundo le gusta recordarnos, a quienes somos padres, que pronto todo esto se va a poner feo.
En eso estoy pensando cuando la bebé tiene año y medio y cada abrazo contiene el riesgo de que se retuerza y se aleje. Si le canto, se queda sentada en mis piernas y me acaricia la cara, pero si todo mi amor se vuelve exageradamente empalagoso, me empuja, me pellizca o me patea para que me quite, y pienso, con algo de miedo, en el día en que cumpla catorce.
Además, tiene muy buen tino con esos codazos “medio accidentales, medio adrede” y una puntería tremenda.
¿Y qué pasa con los hijos varones? ¿Ellos también son así?
Translation Commentary
Alejandro de las Fuentes
It is well known that irony is a constant in Anne Enright’s prose, and that it is such irony what commonly elicits the themes which she explores and dissects. The sarcastic, humorous tone that accompanies her writing emphasises her own questioning about life, death, relationships, family, femininity, or, as in the case of Making Babies, motherhood. Therefore, one of my main concerns before having decided to translate this text specifically was to maintain Enright’s distinctive style and tone.
Once I started working with “Unforgiven”, however, my aim shifted towards preserving the sense of universality conveyed in it. The author’s use of language creates a sort of intimacy between what is being read and one’s personal history. “Unforgiven” may as well be anyone’s account of their relationship with their mother and the way it changes as years go by. Enright’s word choice establishes an idea of the inevitable, that which the majority seems to be destined to go through. Consequently, it was necessary for the translation to keep this sensation alive.
The first term that portrays a sense of inescapability is the title itself. “Unforgiven” is a participial adjective, a word that highlights the conclusion of actions such as the enlisted at the beginning of the text. The adjective emphasises the fact that an individual has already made unbearable mistakes and cannot be absolved. Actions like “coming home late”, “smelling of drink” or “reading the newspaper” are not unforgivable; that would mean that they have not occurred—in fact, they might never do—and there is a negative predisposition regarding them. The participial, in contrast, asserts the idea that mothers cannot avoid committing such social sins and it shows the certainty of experiencing the lack of forgiveness that comes as children’s natural reaction in a patriarchal society like the one Enright so effectively criticises.
While the title successfully conveys these ideas in English, it becomes rather problematic in terms of a Spanish translation for there is not an equivalent word, except for the awkward phrase “lo no perdonado” or the not so accurate yet common interpretation “imperdonable”. I decided to translate the title as “Sin perdón” (without forgiveness) as my intention is for the Spanish-speaking reader to relate to those who are the subject of Enright’s essay, mothers. The first two options would, in opposition to the text, establish a tendency to focus on the description of the actions, downgrading mothers to a subsequent level of importance. My choice follows the conviction that the title prepares the reader to witness a testimony that they already know for it may as well be their own.
Enright’s text does not present excruciatingly long sentences or sophisticated words; it shows a degree of informality that allows the reader to establish an emotional connection with it. The opening sentence, nonetheless, was particularly challenging to translate for it is there where the relation between text and reader is originated. Whereas the composition of the sentence successfully creates this relationship in English, it was necessary to reassemble it in Spanish so that it had the same effect. In Spanish, a communicative relation of proximity between speaker and reader is usually obtained by the use of the second person singular “tú”. I decided, then, that the opening sentence should have an addressee. Thus, the reader is able to relate to their own past. The childhood that is referred at the beginning of the text becomes that of the reader so that they can interiorise the comparison between fathers and mothers and reflect on their own attitude towards both their parents.
It is also relevant to comment that, besides the addition of a personal pronoun, it was required to pay close attention to the word “fathers” for, although its direct translation is “padres”, the term is usually understood as “parents” in the target language. Spanish being a language with gendered nouns, I felt the need to use the equivalents to “mum” and “dad” to differentiate and emphasise the genders and their associated roles, without offering the possibility of thinking of “parents”. In addition, “mamá” and “papá” are the most common ways, in Mexico, to address parents individually, which, regarding the text, adds to the sense of informality and proximity that permeates it.
In a similar sense to what happens with “parents”, the word “children” represents another dilemma. The term is, without the hint of a doubt, translated as “niños”. Nevertheless, the same noun is occupied for referring to boys. Using it in the translation could make the reader imply that only male children are mentioned in the opening line. In order to avoid such a conflict, I rearranged the sentence so that it makes reference to childhood (“niñez”), a concept that includes everyone regardless of their gender. I consider these modifications important, especially when there is an ongoing social debate on linguistic inclusion and male dominance over the Spanish language. Performing these changes, I believe, permits the Spanish-speaking reader to connect just as easily with the text as an English-speaking reader would.
Although “Unforgiven” originated from Enright’s experience and wondering about motherhood, the essay can clearly establish an amicable dialogue with the reader, who may presumably embrace the testimony as their own. My rendering of the essay presents a number of playful Spanish words that maintain the friendly tone of the text and attempt to create the same sense of closeness achieved in Enright’s work. The objective of my translation was both to respect the spirit of the text and to assure the reader is able to grasp the certainty and the hesitation, the fear and the love, the remembrance and the hope that come with motherhood, which Enright’s “Unforgiven” embodies so well in so few lines.