After 10 years of trying to become a mother, Enora Malagré mourns the loss of motherhood that she would have loved to experience. Through his documentary “Why don’t you have children?” broadcast this March 3 on France 5 and France TV, the 45-year-old host sets out to meet women who, like her, have failed to conceive, or who do not want children and accept their choice. She confides in the Journal des Femmes.
“I wanted children, but my body decided otherwise”, confides Enora Malagré in her documentary, touching and concerning for many women: “Why don’t you have children?” broadcast this Tuesday March 3 on France 5 and France TV. Suffering from endometriosis, a chronic illness which affects one in ten women, and which is the leading cause of infertility in France, the 45-year-old presenter went through a real obstacle course. After failed assisted reproduction and 5 natural terminations of pregnancy, Enora Malagré decided to talk about those who, like her, cannot have children, but also about women who, conversely, do not want them and accept it.
The actresses Marianne James and Béatrice Dalle, the journalist and producer Mireille Dumas and the para-cyclist Marie Patouillet agree to address this intimate aspect of their lives. Alongside them, women who have not been able to have children also testify about their journey. “This is the first time in the history of television that we’re talking about this. The main message is obviously to no longer subject women who do not have children to injunctions and judgments, whether by choice or by what they have suffered, since the injunction is the same.Enora tells us.
Because since the dawn of time, and historically, “woman is made to give birth“, a message that the Presidents of the Republic continue to support by encouraging couples to conceive. Proof of this is that by this summer, all French people aged 29 will receive a letter to be made aware of the risk of infertility. This “injunction to make babies“, has “control the destiny of women” and what they want to do or not do with their stomachs is precisely what Enora Malagré denounces.
For ten years, since she was 35, she never stopped hoping to become a mother. “Because, for me, my misfortune started at 35 years old. And it was 10 years of endless hardship. I was obsessed with the idea of having children. That’s all I was thinking about. I was hurting myself. I was punishing my body. It made me unhappy.”she tells us. During this period, seeing children in the park, holding a baby in her arms or celebrating Mother’s Day could lift her heart. “I was planning for myself, it was really very, very hard, and then psychoanalysis, time, the meetings I had, meant that something clicked. Not so long ago, 2 years ago, one of my best friends had a child, and for the first time, when I held her daughter, I didn’t cry, I was very peaceful, I only felt the pleasure of meeting this little girl, and the joy of seeing my friend happy But it was a very, very long road.“, she testifies.
Today, Enora Malagré finally manages to mourn the loss of motherhood, in particular thanks to these caring women who surround her. “I have the impression that the suitcases have flown away. And I really have the feeling of having regained moments of life. And of being again at 35 with desires for young women. And it’s really this film that helped me, because, once again, we didn’t meet many women without children.”
With hindsight, the host tells us that she would have liked to be relieved of guilt. “I would have liked to have been told, in all the PMA treatments that I had, “you can give up, you can stop wanting to have children, there is no problem”… I can tell you that it would have saved my time and my health“, she adds. Finally, this eternal question that according to her we must stop asking: “Why don’t you have kids?”. “Because either it awakens trauma, or if it’s someone who doesn’t want it, that’s no one’s business“.
Thus, through this documentary designed as a “manifesto for freedom”, Enora Malagré wishes “that we stop judging the destiny of women and the choices of women. Whether they abort, whether they don’t abort, whether they have children, whether they don’t have children, that’s enough...” This film also aims to bring together all women by proving that they are above all accomplished women, with or without children. Finally, Enora Malagré sends a clear message to all young women: “that they don’t waste the time that I wasted, trying so hard, wanting children, when deep down, destiny is not there. And that this childless destiny that they can embrace if they want to, let them go for it, because life without children is also an extremely joyful life, which can be fulfilled and into which one must always immerse themselves without fear, because everything will be fine“.
“Why don’t you have children?”, a documentary by Enora Malagré and Chloé Garrel, broadcast this Tuesday March 3 at 9:05 p.m. on France 5 and France TV.
