Before becoming a mother, I had very firm convictions about who I was and what my path would be. I didn't imagine the extent to which motherhood transforms you completely, the extent to which I myself would become a different person. I thought it would be harder for me to stop prioritizing myself, and that I would sometimes experience it with unease or as a loss.

Sometimes we don't want to love or take responsibility for what it entails; we just want to be loved, no matter how or by whom. It's absurd and immature, but that's how it is. The goal seems to be not just being loved, but rather establishing mature and healthy relationships with others, thinking about what we contribute, and not demanding that those who care about us fill the voids of our own deficiencies. I learned all this in therapy, what do you think? It hasn't gone as badly for me as it did for Sara Bosom, has it?

We spent four years with the kids living in Brooklyn, the neighborhood of my childhood. My children went to my elementary school, and Judith even did a year of my school there. middle schoolNow I think they understand me better as a person and know more about what it means to be American, although I wouldn't say New York is entirely typical of the country in general. We've traveled the world and now we're back living in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona.

Why do some women only have girls or only boys? This is a question many people ask when they observe that some families with three or four children all have the same biological sex. Is there a genetic factor that determines this? In human populations as a whole, if no external discriminatory factor is at play—such as sex selection at birth or wars, among others— The ratio of biological male to female sex is very close to 1:1Certainly, there is a slight increase in the percentage of boys compared to girls among newborns, but after one year of life, these percentages are already equivalent. The fact that humans have few offspring makes it difficult to analyze whether there is any genetic factor skewing the proportion when we are only looking at the progeny of a single couple. With two or three children, statistically it is difficult to distinguish the action of chance from the action of some genetic or environmental factor, which must be subtle.

On the day of his mother's funeral, Writer Arundhati Roy was devastated. Not surprising, until she explains that she was also bewildered and somewhat embarrassed to find herself in that state. Her brother, LKC, told her, "I don't understand your reaction. You're the person I treated the worst." Roy writes, "Perhaps he was right, but it seems to me that the one who got the credit was him." She explains all this in the first chapter of'My refuge and my storm (Ara Llibres, translated by Imma Falcó), a kind of memoir that she recommends reading like a novel, as there is a constant mix of fiction and reality, filtered through memories.

In the summer, we move into our house in Alt Empordà, and the children attend summer camps in a nearby town. This allows them to make friends in the area and gain a broader perspective on people and life in general. All of this changes the pace of our children. In August, Gil will be 14, and many things are changing within him. As a mother, it's up to me to give him the space he needs.

You must have been very small, but you were already talking like a little man, perched on the wooden chair, stirring the plate and asking us if that piece of meat would grow back, the suckling pig.

Growing up without maternal love is a wound that, as we all know, leaves a lasting mark. Literature and audiovisual media have been extensively involved, and by chance, I have approached them from two different and complementary perspectives in the same period.

The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) arrested a woman this Thursday for leaving her six-year-old daughter alone in a hotel pool. The child fell into the water and, according to sources familiar with the case, remained there for more than eight minutes. The incident occurred on May 3 at 11:00 a.m. in a hotel in Calella, in the Maresme region. The child was discharged from the hospital this Thursday, the same day the 35-year-old mother was arrested by the Catalan police.

I still smile today when I remember the first time my son said to me, "You know, Mom? I have a girlfriend. Her name is Juliet, and she's older than me." He was four then, and Juliet was, in fact, a year older, and they both went to the same class. Preserving the memories of children's first experiences and discoveries serves to frame the initiation rituals of children as emblems that guarantee an immediate smile. They seem like sweet treats of tenderness that will never be tasted, but can be savored through the most nostalgic memory.

Often, when it comes time to give a mother a gift, things get complicated. Although she's probably the person we know best in the world—and, above all, the one who knows us best—sometimes we get stuck and can't find any ideas for things she might need or that she might be excited about. Below, we suggest six gift ideas with a Catalan heart that we hope your mothers will love on May 4th, Mother's Day.

As I write this, I'm awaiting my mother's imminent death, and I've just returned from a funeral. I wanted to write about another topic, but the truth is, right now I don't feel up to it. And since nothing stops in the face of death, since I'll still have to pay for groceries, rent, extracurricular activities, and the regularization of Social Security contributions in 2023, it's also necessary for me to continue producing, collecting, and invoicing. And writing articles.

1 - Packages wrapped in gift paper. It's the first thing we saw when we walked into my mother's house for the first time after the accident. She'd started preparing Christmas presents, and there they were, as if nothing had happened. As Joan Didion says, "Life can change in an instant. In a normal instant." The emptiness was physical; I was missing limbs. Grief filled me. outsider In a happycracy where constant joy is expected of you. When you're looking for a job, when you go out with friends, or when you meet someone. At some point, I've traded studying or working for one: "Hi, I'm Carla, and my mother has died. And you? Will you tell me about your passing?"

No one prepares you for caring for your partner's children. When falling in love blinds all your senses, you can hardly imagine that, along with that person, other, younger ones will join you who, if all goes well, will end up playing a very important role in your life. It's the beginning of a bumpy road where, through trial and error, those who experience it can experience very contradictory emotions and situations. "Love them as if they were your own... but don't try to be their mother." "You have to be a role model, but setting limits is prohibited" are just some of the phrases that so-called stepparents, or stepparents, as the Association for the Care of Family Diversity prefers to say, must hear.

Over the years and with experience, managing my large family has become easier. Comparing my parenting style with that of other parents, I think I give less importance to things.