Miquel Sitjar: "Men show their feelings in two ways: one is humor and the other, bad temper."

BarcelonaEvery parent has a park or square where their children play after school. I've spent countless hours there because I have two children of very different ages. You make friends and you don't make friends in parks. One day I came across a couple of parents hiding behind some bushes to smoke without their children seeing them. They were supposed to have quit because their children had asked them to, and they didn't want to be found out. I thought about all the surreal things we do for our children and realized there was something there. By the time I got home, I already had a ton of ideas. That's how it all started. The park.

You play the recently divorced veteran father and David Olivares plays the young father.

— When I became a new dad, I even thought I'd get used to eating salt-free, boiled food. I bought into the whole healthy eating hype. I tried, but I couldn't resist. Sooner or later, the beast inside us awakens again, craving Bimbo, Nocilla, or Bollycaos. We can't help it. It's also true that there are dads, like David, who are fully engaged and have a healthy, eco-conscious approach. They're people I admire, and at the same time, they make me incredibly angry. You know what I mean?

It's hard to show your feelings, isn't it?

— Look, broadly speaking, men tend to express their feelings in two ways. One is humor. The other is bad temper. In this text, we want to show male vulnerabilities through humor; that is, in the end, we're two men talking about poop, but also about fears and love.

Your character says lines like: "I can't do a session with her mindfulness "Every time he throws a stone," "Now what I'm interested in is that he stops hitting. Then I'll teach him values at home with Play-Doh, if necessary."

— Sometimes, mothers and fathers want to be too perfect, and I think we have to make mistakes. It's good for children to see that if we're provoked, we can bite back. That we can also screw up and we're not afraid to admit our errors.

You have a child on each side of adolescence.

— I don't think I can apply much of what I learned from Noa's adolescence to Joel's. When he was little, I also thought I could apply the things I learned to his sister, but their childhoods were completely different. Luckily, each one is unique and irreplaceable.

What's the hard part right now?

— With my daughter, I'm now learning to let her fly. I understand that I have to do it more than I'd like. I have to loosen the string more, without letting go completely. My daughter is a woman now, but she's still my little girl. It will be hard to let go completely, but that's life. However far she wants to fly, I'll always be connected to her. For now, I still have a few pieces of advice to give her.

What do you value most?

— Now I place great importance on trust. It's the most precious thing. I'm not so worried about my children making mistakes, but we do need to be able to talk about them. In the end, parents have more taboos than children. We need to be able to talk about drugs, sex, everything.

What's worrying you?

— I'm worried about this stressful and competitive world we live in because, however much we blame others, in the end we're the ones who perpetuate this world by... likes. We adults are addicted to that dopamine rush of instant gratification, that depersonalization. There's generally very little empathy. Yes, we push the idea of empathy on children from school onwards, but at the same time we demand they ace math exams. It's a hypocritical society.

Tell me an anecdote.

— My son has a very contagious, guttural laugh, and I remember recently, just a few days ago, we were having a bowl of soup for dinner, and Joel started laughing for some reason. We all fell silent, and then suddenly he started laughing again, and the soup came out of his nose. Then we all started laughing like crazy. We were hit by one of those fits of absurd laughter where you don't need to say anything; we just looked at each other and couldn't stop laughing. And it lasted a long time. It was a magical moment. We all felt a very special connection, a bond that only a family has when they laugh together.