Jenni Rodà: "I never hide my tears"

BarcelonaChildren have the wonderful ability to force you to confront your fears, your ghosts, your wounds. Often they don't do it intentionally because they don't know your past, but with a look, a tone of voice, a word, or a gesture, they transport you to a moment you had half-buried.

They are like weakness detectors.

— They make you understand that they've come so you can roll up your sleeves and start emptying the heavy backpack you're carrying. Although at first we might not see it as a positive act, because we don't like feeling weak, it's a gift, this. It's clear we don't like having lived through painful experiences, but when we think that our children could go through the same thing, then we truly won't tolerate or accept it for anything in the world.

They force us to try to be the best version of ourselves.

— When Arlet was born in 2011, I too had to be reborn as a mother, and I don't remember the first few years as a pleasant journey. Everyone gives you a lot of advice, and you try to listen. But the hardest and most demanding person I was with myself. I wanted to make it all work, without giving up anything. It was hard for me to accept that I was a different person now and that I couldn't keep doing what I had always done. There was a little person who depended on me and needed me, and I just couldn't handle it all anymore.

Did that experience change with the second child?

— Biel was born three years later, and I tried to approach everything a little differently. I knew that if I had to take care of them, I couldn't do it without taking care of myself first. Since then, I've tried to carve out some time for myself each week. It's good for them to see that Jenni, besides being their mother, is also a woman, a daughter, a friend, and that she has interests and dreams that drive her. They can learn a valuable life lesson from it.

It's good for children to understand their parents' limitations.

— I talk to them openly about everything, both the things that bring me joy and well-being and the things that cause me pain and sadness. Life has all kinds of moments, and we can't paint a rosy picture for them. They also need to be prepared for darkness. If it's time to laugh, we laugh, but if it's time to cry, we cry. I never hide my tears.

What do you focus on most?

— One attitude I'm determined not to pass on, because I know from experience how painful it is, is the inability to say no, enough is enough, enough is enough. It's been difficult for me to set boundaries with certain people, and, looking back, I think it's vitally important to know how to do so when necessary.

What amazes you about your children?

— I admire their grounding in the present. What has happened no longer matters to them, and what is to come doesn't keep them up at night either. They live in the now with an incredible intensity, and that's something we adults lack, as we often remember or project, but we don't truly connect with the present.

What's worrying you?

— Fortunately, I have a daughter and a son who are growing up healthy, and that's already a tremendous joy. But I worry about their mental health. They're at an age where a lot goes through their heads, with all the inputs They receive messages from all sides. Sometimes they might not know what really matters amidst all that chaos. Besides, they're less inclined to communicate now. Their priorities, especially in my daughter's case, are different, and that makes it difficult for me to reach them sometimes. From receiving long, thoughtful responses, I suddenly only get a sentence or even a single monosyllable. I have to learn to be a mother in this new context.

In Carolina I read a phrase that sums up the work of parents: "Stay calm, but never let your guard down." What other phrases can we stick on the fridge?

— I suppose being a mother also means having to keep quiet more often than you'd like. Each of us must strive to nurture our inner garden. We must be able to forgive ourselves.

What makes you happy?

— One day I was walking down the street with Arlet and we were talking about when I was in school, about the things I did and what had happened to me. She told me she was convinced that if our lives had coincided, we would have been very good friends.