Mida Porta Almodóvar: "With a child, the difference between bonding and dependence often becomes blurred."

BarcelonaI'm Clot's daughter, and we had a cat at home. At night I'd hear him running around the apartment, and when we got up, we'd often find a dead cockroach on the bath mat. He was the one who hunted them and left us these little "gifts." It made me very anxious.

You don't like cockroaches, but you've written a novel that's full of them.

— I don't like them at all, but they work wonderfully as a literary device. I remember one summer night in Barcelona, ​​when my mother and I were walking down Valencia Street and cockroaches were running around. There were so many of them. This memory came back to me many times when I was writing. The new reality.

And was Iu interested in them when he was little?

— He was more interested in stones than insects. When we went to the woods, he would always collect stones and put them in his pocket. The box of stones is still somewhere in the house. They really are very pretty. We lived in a farmhouse. We had chickens and a horse; the neighbors had lambs. We didn't have cockroaches, but we did have scorpions. Iu would catch them with a glass. He was very brave. He still is.

You wrote: "Using children for personal gain never ends well." Do you think it's better for children to be unaware of our expectations?

— I think that, unintentionally, we tend to put our own desires above those of our children. We do it with the best intentions, but now, with time, I've seen that it's a mistake. And yes, expectations don't help, neither parents nor children; quite the opposite.

Tell me about a specific situation.

— When Iu was little, I wanted him to study music, and here in Osona, there's a fantastic teacher, Eulàlia Subirà. I enrolled him in cello lessons with her. Now that he's older, one day he told me he didn't like it. It was a real shock. I suggested selling the instrument, but he refused. I was somewhat pleased that he didn't want to part with it. Perhaps I'm still clinging to the possibility that he'll come back to it.

I suppose it's inevitable that moms and dads want to provide as many options as possible.

— We tend to believe that overstimulating them by making them do languages, music, sports, and a thousand other extracurricular activities will do them good. I thought so too, and I filled my son's life with countless activities. Now that he's older, I've finally understood. I was wrong. It would have been a thousand times better to accompany him to the countryside to watch the ants' nuptial flight. I remember one day, driving home on a dirt road that Iu used to patrol, and I lost my temper. I braked suddenly, and the car, despite going slowly, skidded. The look of terror on my son's face shook me. That afternoon I understood that I couldn't go on like that.

You grew up without a father. If you had had one, would you have been a different mother?

— I'm sure I have; I've thought about that sometimes. When Iu was born, I wanted to take on all the roles, just like I'd seen my mother do, and perhaps unintentionally, I made it easier for my son's father not to be involved enough in raising him. I was wrong. Maybe we were a single-parent family, but with a presence that wandered around the house. It was complicated. He didn't act like a father. He didn't participate in raising him, in doctor's appointments, in playing, or in outings. This isn't a reproach. I fell in love, and for a while, he was a good partner, but as for whether he was a good father… That's for Iu to say.

Tell me about the bond with your son.

— When he was little, my bond was very strong, almost physical. But as children grow older, the bond transforms. I'm a little obsessed with all of this because the difference between bond and dependence often becomes blurred. I like knowing he's there, thinking about him and him thinking about me, but I try to let him be. I love him very much, but I know he needs to have his life and I need to have mine. Bond, yes, but dependence, no.

Sorry, I can't get it out of my head, is that thing about ants real?

— It exists, and it's beautiful. In late summer, at dusk, after it's rained, you can sometimes see it: a group of winged male ants swarms along the paths, the anthills buzz with activity, and their wings gleam in the afternoon light. Watching them take flight is fantastic.