Editorial Introduction

When a child is born, a mother is born as well. This fundamental statement, which can define the existence of a woman, conveys a reality as ancient as it is unknown. Becoming the mother entails a great deal of changes, some gradual, some intensive, and simultaneous, in many ways overwhelming. The presence of the baby itself makes it more unlikely for the woman to explicitly demonstrate her feelings through the experience. The child is the socially-recognized novelty, even for the mother, inasmuch as she exercises her new social role and performs all the related everyday tasks––with no holiday! Yet the newborn mother goes through one of the major transitions a human being can live, regarding her own life course, and not the potential and real meaning of the life course of another human being. The social expectations focus on woman as caretaker; for woman as living human being, who is becoming the mother, the heaviest burdens are solitude and social invisibility, which are seldom shared. As the Brazilian poet Alberto da Cunha Melo says,