Casa del Encuentro: a space where the loneliness of education is alleviated

It is Tuesday afternoon and at the Casa del Encuentro located in the municipality of La Pintana, the nurses are starting to arrive little by little with the children. One of them, Tamara, 7 years old, approaches and shouts at us: “I mean something. It’s much better to be here than to be in a boring, locked house. One of the mothers, Rosa, shares the same opinion: “Before coming here, my daughter was very bored, she had tantrums at home. Coming here helped me in the notion of parenthood because I had a more structured education with my eldest daughter, who is already a teenager. Here I learned that things can be done differently, with a more democratic education, as it is called today”.

“It’s a wonderful place because I found company there, it’s very welcoming. Here I can breathe, sit and talk with other moms. » Karen says. And another woman, Ana, completes her: “I started bringing my grandson here and it helped him a lot because he didn’t know how to socialize with anyone, but it also helped me because I arrived with a depression and, without realizing it, it happened to me. It’s that they welcome us very well here, children like us.

The practice that mothers raise their children alone, this is a relatively recent custom in history of humanity, born from the increasing incorporation of women into the labor market at the beginning of the 20th century, until it became a normalized condition. The people who made up the support networks that once existed, such as sisters, friends, mothers and even the couple, are now working, which means that the postpartum woman isolates herself with her newborn baby. This loneliness is the enemy of motherhood and it hurts her very much.

According to the National Early Childhood Survey (2017) In 95% of Chilean households, the primary caretaker of young children is the mother, and 75% of those looking after young children say they do not receive any care assistance. “Weak parenting support has a negative impact on the mental health of mother and child: on the one hand, it increases parental exhaustion, constituting a risk factor for psychiatric pathologies; and on the other, it withdraws into the home, reducing the chances of socialization and socio-emotional development for boys and girls,” explains Valentina Peri, psychologist and director of La Casa del Encuentro.

This situation is exacerbated in the most vulnerable communes due to the high degree of mistrust and the scarcity of recreational, participatory and safe community spaces for girls and boys with their guardians.

Here’s how the women refer to themselves: “I was alone at home, I felt overwhelmed, I didn’t know where to go. On the other hand, here we sit down to discuss, we have a coffee, we laugh for a moment, we change chips. Because we mothers are raising very alone, cooped up at home, doing chores and it’s very stressful,” says Karen.

“It is difficult to make parenthood compatible with other responsibilities. Here, when we talk to the other women, we realize that we have a lot in common, even if we didn’t know each other much before,” adds Rosa.

For the design of the Casa del Encuentro, Valentina and Diego Blanco, clinical director of the house, were inspired by the Casa Verde: psychoanalytical device created in France in 1978, by the French psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto, who developed the project of a space of free movement, guarded by a team of professionals, who works without scheduled activities, inserted in the community, where boys and girls frequent in their first years of life, with their guardians.

In France there are currently more than 300 greenhouses, this is part of the public health policy.

“We are inspired by the Parisian Maison Verte but we rethink everything according to the Latin American context and particularly the context, culture, politics and history of La Pintana”, explains Diego.

Françoise Dolto —continues— says it’s like a square but accompanied. “But here it’s not about arriving and going to a place, because the balls are running or because they are involved in the pasta. Instead, we go to a square in Providencia and the children and mothers become friends and can talk calmly. We can see the harshness of inequalities there.

The Casa del Encuentro was inaugurated in 2014, then in 2016 a second location was opened, but closed due to lack of funding.

“The objective is to provide a space for early socialization for boys, girls and children aged 0 to 6 as well as their guardians, who may be mothers, fathers, grandparents, neighbours. Supported by a reception team, speech therapists and psychoanalysts, we accompany the day of single fathers and mothers in the face of the daily concerns of parenthood, in the face of the effects of parental loneliness”, explains Diego.

And it is also a leisure space where you can rest, go out, share, avoid loneliness, find some suggestions, support, both from the team and from other caregivers. “Here, the team does not have a unique professional knowledge that domesticates parenting, but rather an exchange of knowledge that can sometimes even take place with other mothers or grandmothers who have already gone through this stage. I would say that one of the main works here is to create common ground around parenthood,” he adds.

Diego points this out because what he has seen in these years is that in some more vulnerable sectors, to enter any social program, mothers are asked for their Rut, their social file and a series of documents. “Maternities are beginning to be framed by a very punitive, regulatory, paternalistic and very medical discourse. So mothers fall back on the inner life of the home, without being able to communicate much about the despair that arises or the madness of motherhood itself.

“Here, on the other hand, the mothers come to talk about reality TV, to listen to the conversation of their comrades who may be there. They start meeting their neighbours, they come to rest, they come to ask questions without feeling judged and without being afraid that a state entity will come and tell them that they are at risk,” she adds. Karen’s story makes this clear: “I came here, referred by the office, because my daughter had developmental issues, so I came here super stressed, tired, overwhelmed thinking I was doing wrong. But even today, I can breathe.”

Going out to meet other mothers, to listen to their experiences or simply to share with women who are going through the same experiences, who can share their joys, but also their doubts, fears and sadness, offers a framework of fundamental emotional support for mothers. . That’s why Rosa, when she finds desperate mothers, tells them about this place. “And I do it because once I also saw myself like that, overwhelmed, without leaving the house. Moreover, I am raising my two daughters alone, like many women, and this cannot continue. Let us women continue to rise on our own”.