My life today is a little more difficult than six years ago, but much fuller. My life partner, Pau Valls, is also an illustrator and comic book author. Both of us, freelancers. Both of us, creatives. You can imagine the pressure that often accompanies us due to economic uncertainty. But, despite this, there is not a single day that we do not feel immensely fortunate.

Guiu, her eldest son, is mostly seen by his little head; she smiles with the guitar in her hands. She has had it as her profile picture for over a year and has often thought about changing it, because, with Laia, the family has grown. But it captures her day-to-day life as a mother and @mare.cantam so well that she always ends up keeping it. Mar Fondevila (Barcelona, 1995), a music teacher for children, created this Instagram profile when she heard some mothers say they wanted to sing songs to their children but didn't quite know what to sing to them.

I remember the date when I signed up for the waiting list to access assisted reproduction treatments through social security. Wait, think about it, evaluate it, the day will come, don't back down despite the uncertainty, even without having a stable job. When my turn came, I embraced the opportunity with all the fear in the world, and it went well. What a small, great miracle, life! Already pregnant, I often thought about the greatness of nature, which had wanted “everything in me to be a yes” at the first attempt, without too many obstacles, although I had counted on great help from science and technology. It remains curious that at that moment I recognized the little wooden figurine in my parents' home study, a Ghanaian fertility deity. It inspired me and I felt protected.

Parenthood came to me at a time when I was beginning to go birding quite a lot. But when you are a parent, and of twins in an augmented way, you have to put aside, even if only temporarily, certain things. This meant that for a few years I went out into the field less to see birds, but it has also made me develop a passion for explaining birds to my children, to my friends, on social media and in the book.

Our home is a beautiful chaos. There is always something going on: a little game in the hallway...

Like penguins is an autofiction show, in which I tell the story of Helena, who is me. In it, I explain why I became a clown.

Crying uncontrollably when losing, being unable to wait for commercials to end, or shouting because they are not allowed to go out with their friends are situations that show a certain difficulty in managing frustration. "Frustration is a skill that must be trained day by day, because we will encounter it throughout our entire life," asserts the educational coach Mar Milán.

Three summers ago we traveled to Croatia and Montenegro and we drove around in a rented car. To take a shortcut, we passed through Bosnia. We had no problem entering, but when it came time to leave, there was an error with Laura's ID card.

Since I became a father, I no longer go to the bar to spend the afternoon. Having children changed me one hundred percent. I stopped smoking joints and growing weed. Now I don't even smoke tobacco and I don't have alcohol at home. My habits changed radically because I started waking up early to take the kids to school and I would go pick them up in the afternoon. My partner worked and I, since I had a creative job, had more flexible hours and was in charge of taking them to extracurricular activities, making lunch and dinner.

Congratulations to everyone because we are one step away from overcoming September, which would be like a huge Monday in which everything starts up again to, most of the time, stay right where it already was. If you have children in your care, you will have experienced an extra point of stress because, as Laura Camps wrote in this newspaper: “The bureaucracy of child-rearing is a job in itself, the fourth workday.” Especially for mothers, because care is a feminized task to which, says UN Women, they dedicate 2.8 hours more per day than men do. With this, I don't think I am revealing any exclusive, because sometimes we can call statistics science, but also confirmation. However, let's talk about the why. Is there something that compels us, women, to care more? Popular culture, always one step ahead in terms of spite, speaks of a “nothing box” that allows men to “go blank” and not think about anything for certain periods. But this, let's be fair, has no scientific evidence. What has been studied are the differences between male and female brains and the conclusion, grosso modo, is that we cannot conclude anything because science, as Jorge Wagensberg summarized in one of the aphorisms he wrote when he was not designing sensational museums like the CosmoCaixa, is “to observe to investigate, to investigate to know, and to know to live in uncertainty.” One example is enough: an article in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews from 2021 analyzed three decades of studies on male and female brains and concluded that the differences do not go much further than size (11% larger in men). But a commentary published shortly after responded that, although it agreed with many ideas, it would be necessary to take into account other factors (hormones, social experiences, environment...) to analyze it properly.

When I was writing the book, the stories that impacted me the most were those in which parents lost their children not because of death, but due to circumstances caused by the parents themselves.

One day, when my daughters were little, we were queuing at the butcher's shop, they were tired and threw a tantrum. I was also tired and embarrassed by their tantrum, because I felt that everyone was looking at me, and I handled it as best I could. I don't remember what I said to them, but they calmed down. Then, a woman who was waiting congratulated me for having done well. I haven't seen her again, and considering that in Castellterçol we all know each other, it was strange, but at that moment she gave me a lot of confidence. As if a fairy had touched me with her magic wand.

The concept of family at home has become more extensive for us, and the one in charge of explaining it to me was my youngest son, who is now seven years old. Not long ago, when I proposed a whole slew of plans to do as a family on the weekend, he replied: “Okay, mom, but with whom will we do this, with the small family, the medium one, or the big one?”. Suddenly, we had three families, from the smallest to the largest, like all the objects and utensils in the three bears' home. He soon clarified his definition and who was part of each.

Among the thousands of parenting books and manuals currently filling bookstores, we come across the brief essay In the Age of Child-Things:Ensayos contra la crianza como emprendimiento, by Santiago Gerchunoff (Buenos Aires, 1977), where the philosopher, writer, and university and high school teacher dissects modern parenting and how it has become professionalized to the point that children have turned into an object to be improved. The book is a collection of short essays he wrote some time ago while raising his daughters, who are now 13 and 19 years old, readapted with a common thread: the concept of child-things.What are thing children?

Vladimir Putin wants to turn large families into the traditional Russian family. But while only 5% of households are made up of a father, a mother, and three or more children, almost 40% of families are single-parent and, in the vast majority of cases, matriarchal. Katia and Anya – fictitious names to preserve their anonymity –, a mother and daughter aged 45 and 11 respectively, are an example of this archetypal model in a society historically marked by high male mortality, the central role of women in care, and, after the fall of the USSR, by high divorce rates.

A video recorded in Brazil, showing parents making their son believe he has worms in his stomach from eating too many sweets, has generated enormous controversy. In the images, the parents show him a fake ultrasound in which a supposed worm appears to be moving inside his stomach. The boy, who still has a sweet in his mouth, ends up crying and promising to stop eating them.

Parents and mothers arrive at summer with an invisible backpack full of expectations. We want to make the most of each day, create unforgettable memories, make up for the time we haven't had during the school year, and ensure that our children will be super happy. But expectations often come with pressure. Social media, moreover, increase this anxiety when we see perfect families smiling in front of a sunset, relaxed and tanned parents, and siblings sharing the same shovel without arguing. And when we see others' photographs, we possibly have the feeling that only we are improvising.

I didn't have it easy when, at eighteen, I dropped out of university to study dramatic art at the Institut del Teatre. My father opposed it and tried to make me change my mind, but I carried on regardless. Over the years, he ended up accepting it. At home, we have always tried to pass on to them that the most important thing is to do things out of vocation. We have never told them what they should study, nor have we tried to guide them towards a specific profession. And what path have they been taking?

Most children stop using daytime diapers between the ages of two and four, although nighttime training can be more difficult and may not be completed until around five or six years of age. For Alejandra Pérez, supervisor of pediatrics and neonatology at Sant Pau Campus Salut Barcelona, it is key to understand that sphincter control is not a habit learned through repetition, "but rather a maturational milestone acquired when the child's body is physiologically, cognitively, and emotionally ready." Neurologically, Pérez continues, "it involves a transition from an involuntary reflex action (where the bladder empties automatically) to a voluntary and conscious act under cortical control." Forcing this process prematurely, therefore, "is ineffective and can generate frustration, anxiety, and unnecessary conflicts, as each child has their own pace of nervous system maturation."

When summer arrives, it seems like we all have to do something extraordinary. Social media fills up with paradisiacal beaches, family trips, activities, unique experiences, and calendars so full that they even need a break.