”Un giorno, quando sarai mamma”. I chiaroscuri della maternità come destino

One day, when you will become a mother. The chiaroscuro of motherhood as destiny One day, when you will become a mother, you...' Every little girl, teenager and woman has heard this phrase several times. To be a woman, even to this day, seems to mean to be destined for motherhood. A woman who has not fulfilled herself professionally, but is a mother, is nevertheless someone who fulfilled the role expectations of her gender. A professional childless woman does not get the same kind of automatic recognition. There is a missing identity brick that a widespread common-sense claims. More recently, a different woman model is emerging, not the childless, but the childfree woman. That’s partial progress, but it is still worth verifying that, despite feminism and changes in gender definition, there is a need for a new term to describe a non-motherly woman. This article aims to analyse this issue through an ethnographic approach. We first analyse demographically driven scenario data from three countries: Spain, Italy and Great Britain. We then delve further into the topic by collecting and analysing media content dealing with motherhood. Finally, we explore the issue through three focus groups targeting women in three age groups: 20 years old, still planning their future; 35/40 years old, in time to become mothers through natural choice; and 55 years old and beyond .