SUNDAY, MAY 8, CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MOTHERS.
To mark the date, column nodes CNN At Plural+ we had a chat with the greatest scorer in the history of football at the Olympic Games, Cristiane Rozeira . She currently plays for Santos.
Cris is 36 years old, is a lesbian, married to the lawyer Ana Paula Garcia and, finally, is the mother of Bento, who just turned one year old.
An incredible conversation, in which she talks about her relationship with her family after coming out as a lesbian, her daily life in soccer with motherhood and what changed in her life after Bento arrived.
An example for many women in the LGBTQIA+ community who dream of being mothers one day.
CRIS, HOW WAS YOUR MOTHER’S PERCEPTION PROCESS ABOUT YOUR SEXUALITY? AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY WITH YOUR CHILD?
Cris Rozeira – I think my biggest concern was not even telling my mother. It was how I would be seen, how it would be with future brands and companies that I wanted to hope to get a deal done. I lived in that famous wardrobe. I used to tell my friends, to the closest people, but for the family we kept that ‘oh and the boyfriends?’ ‘Oh, not now’.
I don’t think I would do anything other than how my mother was with me. I would talk to him a lot [Bento]because that’s what me and Ana [esposa] we want with him. We know it will be very difficult for him, because he will have to face the society in which he has two moms. I hope not, but it could be that he goes through prejudice and we want him to be a guy who knows how to give the answer on top of that, who knows how to deal with it.
DO YOU THINK FOOTBALL IS A RECEPTIVE PLACE FOR PLAYERS WHO ARE MOTHERS?
Cris Rozeira – I don’t think so, because within women’s football we don’t have many mothers. And from the experience I have of talking to other girls who have this desire, their biggest concern is: will I be welcomed by my club? Will I have assistance from my club after this period when I stop? And then there’s a slightly more difficult side, because when you’re an older athlete, it’s like ‘ah, how am I going to get a 38/39-year-old athlete to return to activities within the club?’
HOW DO YOU THINK THE RELATIONSHIP OF A HOMOAFFECTIVE COUPLE CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE ACCEPTANCE PROCESS OF A CHILD IN THE LGBTQIA+ COMMUNITY?
Cris Rozeira – I think acceptance will be better, since within your family environment there are couples who are homosexual. So, I think this brings greater security to the child, to be able to open up, to be able to talk about how he feels and, with that, to have the strength of his family members for him to be able to face all the prejudice that may happen throughout the life. his life. But I believe that the process inside the house ends up being more peaceful.
DO YOU BELIEVE THAT PREJUDICE IN FOOTBALL [SOBRE MATERNIDADE] HAS IT STRESSED THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOU, YOUR WIFE AND YOUR CHILD?
Cris Rozeira – I think that within football we know that there are not many mothers, precisely because of the difficult process that ‘either I stop to get pregnant and end my career, or I don’t know if the club will support me’. So I think these are things that bother when a person doesn’t have a little more sensitivity to think ‘wow, today she’s very tired. What can we do today? We can ask her how this process of having a small child at home is going’. So maybe because these football insiders have never experienced this, it’s new. Even though I didn’t give birth to Bento, this whole side of being with him, of being able to spend a few hours with him, especially in the morning or at dawn, we work with our body, so either we get sleepy or we get tired.
AT ANY TIME, BECAUSE OF BEING A LESBIAN WOMAN AND A PUBLIC FIGURE, DID YOU HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT BECOMING A MOTHER?
Cris Rozeira – I had this concern mainly because of the brands, since within women’s football it was always difficult to close contracts and have partnerships. So at first I had this concern. Over time and with the desire to be a mother, having had this great desire between me and Ana, I think it brought much more strength to face everything that came and show that there is a great love here on this side, that people can, yes, believe and dream of being mothers, especially homosexual couples. I think that this strength of becoming a mother made us encouraged to fight in this whole world that, unfortunately, we see that there is still a lot of prejudice.
FOR YOU AND ANA, WHAT WAS THE BEST MOMENT IN YOUR PREGNANCY AND LIFE WITH BENTO?
Cris Rozeira – I think it was the explosion of finding out we were going to be moms. I think it was a great joy inside our house, inside our family. I think that now we say that maybe this is the best moment, because now Bento is communicating, he is interacting, so it’s ‘Bento’s little world’. But when Ana was pregnant, that moment of feeling him in her belly, singing to him, moving… there was an ice cream that Ana ate and he ended up moving a lot, I think they had some really nice moments.
TODAY, AFTER BEING A MOTHER, DO YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR MOTHER BETTER?
Criz Rozeira – We always get some things from our mothers, right?? We listen to the stories they tell us about how things were when we were children. Not that we didn’t have that before, but I think we have a perception of how difficult some situations are for a mother. So, for example, if you’re going to walk with a stroller on a street where the sidewalk is all broken, it’s super difficult to pass there. Or if there’s a line that is preferential and people don’t respect it, that’s a very absurd thing for us.
We always respected it, because that’s what was passed on to us. The rest of the things we are learning, it is being a new discovery, it is our way of creating Bento, of understanding what and how he wants things. He’s pretty crazy, isn’t he? Because he has a lot of these little things, we learn from him and listen to our mothers too, because I think they have a lot to pass on to us, but I think we’ll unravel his little world, the two of us together.
WHAT CHANGED IN YOUR LIFE AFTER YOU BECAME A MOTHER?
Cris Rozeira – We set off fireworks when there are moments when we can sleep until 10 am, for example. And how much I miss you when I go to play and I want to go home soon. And now that he’s at that moment of calling ‘mommy, mommy’… When I’m not at home he keeps knocking on the door and calling me, I miss him a lot.
And how strong we are is very funny, because we have no idea of ​​the strength we have until becoming a mother. It’s like ‘come here, we are your protection’ . That’s what we are for him, this strength of always wanting to give the best for him, imagining what we’re going to create with him, what is the world we’re going to build together.
Source: CNN Brasil
