Throughout the day, Catalan women dedicate 1.17 hours more to housework and caregiving than men. However, they also bear the burden of planning and organizing everything that needs to be done for the home and family: what to buy, what to cook for dinner, and coordinating pick-up times for children or grandparents. While the gap has narrowed in recent years, this is not because men are becoming more involved in managing household chores, but rather because they have reduced their time spent on these tasks. According to the 2024 Time Use Survey of Catalonia, published this Thursday by the Statistical Institute of Catalonia using European standards, women dedicate 3 hours and 17 minutes daily to these types of tasks, compared to 2 hours for men, "which maintains an inequality of over 64%."

Suffocated between two diaper sizes. Invisible amidst digital calendars that remind us of appointments with other people's "first-degree" relatives. Crushed by an army of human resources that treats us as if we were being given "vacation" to demand hard-won rights. Buried in a system that thrives on us, women in our forties and fifties who care, work, and care, care, care, care until others take over and care for us, care, care, care; or not.

When you look at it from a more focused perspective, feeling guilty as a parent isn't as bad as it may seem. It means reflecting on what you do and don't do, and evaluating your actions and inactions. I highly doubt that people who don't feel guilty about parenthood are perfect parents; they simply don't engage in this self-assessment exercise. Out of a sense of self-worth or survival, I don't know.