by Maria Luisa Agnese and Greta Sclaunich
Two daughters at a very young age, separation from her husband. The most famous divorce lawyer in Italy tells her story: “I used to put her in front of the TV. I still feel guilty. Today 70% of my clients are men: the women I meet are domineering, arrogant and cunning.”
Anna Maria Bernardini de Pace is extremely feared and aggressive as a family lawyer (“I know that they say I’m a witch”) and has a long history as a full-time mother of two beloved daughters: she speaks about her primary mother’s calling in that between the forest and Sea-built house in Ameglia, province of La Spezia, where one of his offices is located. They spent the first lockdown here, all together with their daughters and grandchildren: “Many families in the same circumstances fell apart, for me it was the best time of my life.” There were nine of us and we even slaughtered each other, but I would have them keep it there forever.”
She became a mother at a very young age.
“I got pregnant when I was 22 and Francesca was born when I was just 23. With my husband it was a great love, perhaps the only true love of my life, even though I had many. I was so in love that, although I was very free and bossy, I put myself into his hands with the plan of having twelve children.
Agnese: Although she is the public woman everyone knows, she did not suffer from the ambivalence between motherhood and career that many girls feel today.
“Definitely not. Ever since I met my husband at the university because he was my professor, I immediately had the dream of marrying him and I did that exactly nine months later. I’m leaving the university and with joy because he asked me to do it.”
Sclaunich: So she was ready to just be a mother?
«I wanted to be a mother all my life. My daughters were absolutely the biggest thrill I’ve ever had. Both pregnancies, albeit difficult ones, and childbirth. I introduced standing birth to Macedonio Melloni, with the mother tied to the bed rail and the baby forced to climb out while the midwives screamed because then only births lying down were possible.
Sclaunich: I think there is a common thread in her life: she always trusted her instincts a lot.
“Always, even now that I’m 75 years old. I am convinced that we as women have a power in our guts – because our decisions are made in our guts – that is greater than that of our brains.”
Sclaunich: When you’re pregnant, everyone says, “You have to do this and that,” but they also say, “Follow your instinct.”
“Nobody gave me a lot of rules. Maybe because my experience as a mother began in my childhood: I was the eldest with three male brothers, my mother taught and went to school early in the morning, we lived in Chiavenna in Valtellina, where my father was a judge, and he also left at 8.30 Clock. I took my brothers to kindergarten since I was five. Of course it was easier in a city where we all knew each other, even though my father had already taught me to read, because I needed to know how to navigate the streets.
Agnese: She grew up with motherhood built in.
“Yes, my brothers are more my children than my mother’s. When I was finally able to give birth to my daughters, I was an explosion of joy from the moment I found out I was pregnant.”
Agnese: What if she couldn’t have children with this inclination towards motherhood?
“I never thought about it. But I have been a lawyer for 40 years and have treated all of my more than four hundred trainees like daughters and sons. So I also have the feeling of non-biological motherhood. It’s normal for me to be like this, I know I could never become a politician. For example, I think Giorgia Meloni is the true non-toxic feminist because she puts herself on the level of men: I appreciate her for that, I would never be able to do that, but I find it a strength that she is like that.”
Agnese: Are you sure this could be the model for women?
“I don’t know, but I admire her for it. To be an over-the-top mother, I spent five years with a Jungian psychoanalyst who told me it was wrong to interfere too much. I went because my job involves family pain and I could no longer distinguish the clients’ pain from my own. I chose a Jungian because I had always seen Jung as a man who brought forth useful aspects for the future, rather than as a Freud who examined the evil aspects of the past. And she immediately noticed this exaggerated expression of motherhood in me, even though I stopped when the love ended. For me it is love from which children must be born and with love they must grow up. So much so that I tell my clients: You adults pay me, but I defend your children, not you. I have failed many clients by abandoning the mandate because they did not respect their children.
Agnese: Is that how it went in the Totti case?
“It happened that way because there were too many people and I’m a bully and I wanted to command.”
Sclaunich: He said that today he is more willing to defend men because they belong to the weaker sex.
“Today they are the victims. When I started studying family law in 1987, women were the weakest party: they were treated like luxury babysitters at every social level. Even the allowance given to them was ridiculous, so in the late 1980s I developed the concept of standard of living, which unfortunately was struck down by the Supreme Court last year. But now women have caught up with men economically, so it makes no sense for them to be rewarded with something they can do themselves. Now I have to protect the weak part: At the moment I have 70 percent men as my customers because they have no idea what has become of women. Tyrants, arrogant, cunning.”
Sclaunich: Did you reach the peak of your career and success without giving anything up at the end?
“I gave up a lot because when I separated from my husband it was a lot of pain, I would never have wanted to steal my daughters from the family.” But I said to myself: I am a role model for these girls, who are about ten years old were old, they can’t grow up with me, who put up with anything to stay married. I was a great feminist because I fought, demonstrated with Pannella and achieved great things in those years.”
Agnese: But with this strong maternal feeling, how did you manage to let her go?
“It still costs me today, every time they leave I feel bad.” I was only a mother until they were ten years old: I breastfed them until they were almost a year old, I raised them and was always with them. Unfortunately, my husband was missing as a father and this was one of the reasons for the separation.”
Agnese: What kind of mothers are your daughters?
“I always pretended that I was a good and capable mother. My myth was the French psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto, who explains how one should be equal to children and still respect the strictness of orders and rules. But around the age of 17-18, my daughters became wild: disco, traveling… I said no, but they always found a way out: I thought they would never get married and wanted to start a family. Instead, they then became mothers, I swear to you, when I think about it, when I started working again, I did what shouldn’t be done: I left them at home alone when they were minors… And I I was ashamed to death.
Sclaunich: If you could go back, would you do anything differently to balance work and daughters?
«I would spend more with them. I still feel guilty about leaving her alone. When I went back to work, I had no one to help me. On Sundays I took my work home and put it in front of the TV in another room.
Agnese: What does your Jungian psychologist say?
“That I was crazy, but since everything went well, I must be happy.”
Sclaunich: You mentioned guilt earlier. I have yet to meet a mother, myself included, who doesn’t have it. But do fathers have it?
“Yes, they have it, not towards themselves but towards their children: I have examples.”
Agnese: You are a libertarian who fought with Pannella, what do you think about surrogacy?
“I am against it for the sake of the child: it scares me that a child grows up in the womb and then goes to the other side of the world, even more so if it maintains a relationship with the original mother.” I would like the possibility of adoption in Italy change that is handled in a shameful way when instead there is the possibility of giving birth and leaving the child in the hospital: it should be possible to adopt there alone immediately, giving singles and couples the opportunity to homoparental. For me, love has no sex and should not be tainted by the idea of the couple in the manger. Love is love. You don’t know how many mothers there are who don’t love. It is not true that a mother has love as an instinct.
Sclaunich: So what makes a woman a mother?
“The responsibility to be one.” Responsibility comes from the Latin responsum, meaning answer: the answer to life and if you don’t give it, a child is forever unhappy. I think of the mothers who don’t follow them, who never say no, just to take them away. All the no’s I said to my daughters felt like a blow to the liver, but I did it to make them aware of the boundaries.”
Sclaunich: Don’t you remember that? Do they thank you for telling them?
“They don’t thank me, but they still say no to their children.” For example, they crucified me because they wanted the scooter, and now someone is fighting the same way. On the other hand, I always gave him sweets, even though it wasn’t supposed to be a systematic thing. I had my own way of pampering her, because I, in turn, had not been pampered: my parents had been absent, my mother had chosen a career, had become one of the first lawyers, and we children went to boarding school. Today I am happy to give my daughters whatever they want, also because we were poor when I separated: when they invited me to lunch, I asked if I could bring them too so that we could at least eat meat.
Sclaunich: I wouldn’t have imagined that! Very often we women follow the example of male leadership. I was pleased to discover that you can also be a leader by leveraging your feminine qualities, including motherly ones.
“Just remember that I never cook, I often eat in restaurants. But when my daughters are there, I’ll start cooking and no one will be able to imagine that while I’m on the phone for work, I’m making ragù for everyone.”
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November 4, 2023 (modified November 4, 2023 | 1:16 p.m.)
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED