“La mamma vive sempre su un filo trasparente”. L’identikit della madre: verso nuovi immaginari?

Medically Assisted Procreation and Surrogacy have changed the social imaginary that revolves around the idea of conception, family, father, and mother. With the introduction of the figure of the donor and/or gestational mother, it cannot be easy to define who the mother is clearly. The genetic link, the pregnancy, or the childcare activity may take on different importance in defining who the child’s mother is. The exploratory study presented here investigates what social imagery emerges regarding the mother figure in the traditional context and the context defined by reproductive techniques. To achieve this objective, forty women were interviewed, divided into two groups of equal size, according to whether they had experienced motherhood first-hand or had no children. The aim was to grasp what it means to be a mother for a woman today, but, above all, if and how much this imagery changes within the articulated scenarios resulting from PMA and GPA.