For a few weeks now I have been reading a few articles about my new fatherhood and mayoralty. This has already led me to meet people who congratulate me for having become a father, when I have not yet become one; others who ask me how it is that I am in the City Hall if I have the permit, when obviously I cannot yet enjoy it, or even some men who have made a sarcastic comment about the fact that fatherhood leads me to "quit work".
All this makes me think how some people, even today, want to turn something as common as "being a father" into something incompatible with the exercise of a position like being a mayor. I experience it as a man, but women experience it even more. As if it were an oxymoron to be a father and to be a good mayor, when it should only be experienced as natural and welcome news.
The decision of how I am going to face this new fatherhood is a private one, between my partner and me. I would like to live in a society in which these issues do not become significant or controversial. Neither with us nor with anyone else. I would like fatherhood and what it implies to be lived with the naturalness that is assumed. In the same way as it is done at other vital moments, when we have to take leave from work for care or health reasons. Simply, with respect. But that is not the case yet.
In any case, if a public debate is pertinent, it is about care and how we guarantee conciliation in today's society. Because beyond me, there is a mother here who is also a protagonist. And she will be a mother again in a context in which there are still many rights to be won. For example, the right for women to stop being penalized at a professional and salary level for being mothers. Likewise, we are far from the rights that exist in many states in northern Europe that guarantee, for example, that until the child is at least one year old, the father or mother can take care of them without any kind of economic repercussion. And we are still far - despite the most progressive government in history - from applying the European regulations that require remuneration for the 8-week leave for caring for children. And, finally, we are still far from guaranteeing quality public schooling in the 0 to 3 stage throughout the country (in Girona, as we have repeatedly said, it is one of the government's priorities).
Having said all this, yes, in the spring I will be a father again and I will continue to be mayor. Prioritising care and focusing on the arrival of the baby at home, I will continue to perform the duties of mayor during these coming months. The basis of all this is that I have not stopped being either one or the other during this time nor will I do so now, as I already claimed at the beginning of my mandate. An exercise that I will obviously approach in a different way, adapting myself, adapting ourselves, to the context in which we will live. And this is no minor issue. The way we do politics is also a way of expressing our personal convictions. The personal is also political. Proximity, dialogue, empathy, leadership and clarity of ideas are transversal in politics, in parenthood and, ultimately, in life. And they are concepts to be claimed everywhere.
And I conclude: being a present father, exercising my paternity with all the responsibilities that entails, should never be incompatible with the work that one does, whether being mayor or a nurse, just as being a mayor for all the people of Girona should not depend on whether one is a father or not. We claim life. In every sense.
