by
When I tell you that my oldest daughter has already turned 18, I can notice how the brains of those who receive the information begin to spark. Not because I look younger than I am, but because we have become accustomed to the fact that the normal thing, now, is to stop being mothers by 40 and I had my daughters before I was 30. I, who in my town was a From those “late” mothers, I am now a “young” mother. It was when I had my daughters, when I embarked on what was written that it had to be, that it was the right thing, and I did it without giving it the slightest thought.
I must have been around 25 when I met the man who two years later became my husband. I remember that when he got down on one knee showing me a beautiful engagement ring, instead of making me emotional, as happens in so many viral videos that we see on the Internet, instead of crying, it made me laugh. It’s not that I didn’t think about the future, about getting married, having children, dogs, mortgages and cars bought on credit. No, but it was something that was not in my daily life; In my brain it was something that other people did and that, at some point, I would feel like doing it.
I certainly wasn’t prepared when that proposal came, much less for everything that came afterward at an unusual speed. At that time I was working in the press office of a newly created ministry and life was passing me by as I dealt with media that was absolutely belligerent with the arrival of Zapatero and his ministers to the government. The days were getting shorter and my partner, with the help of my mother, got to work organizing the wedding.
In less than a year she was married and a few months later, pregnant. And I barely realized it, my work was stealing my attention. I saw myself many times as Scarlett O’Hara, saying to myself: “I can’t think about it now, I would go crazy if I did, I’ll think about it tomorrow…”. And in that postponing of reflection, in 2008 I saw myself married, with two girls, a mortgage, a car paid for on credit and about to have a dog. What for many women is a beautiful and exciting stage, completely crushed me. I was overwhelmed by all the love I felt for my daughters, I poorly managed the fear that something bad would happen to them, of doing it wrong, of not being a good enough mother. My daughters were very smart, beautiful, happy, outgoing and loving girls who warmed my heart with their hugs, but I couldn’t stop being scared.
In 2009 I was presenting a three-hour live program on regional television in Extremadura, raising two babies and taking charge of all the running of a home. I was the one who knew when to put on the washing machines, when to buy shampoo or vegetables, the size of my daughters’ clothes and shoes, their weight and height, the one who took them to pediatric check-ups. I was the one who was in charge of thinking about what was for dinner based on what had been eaten that day or what would be on the table the next. Then it was “normal”, now it is called mental load.
Like a hamster in a wheel
It didn’t take long for me to feel like a hamster on a wheel. With hindsight I realize that it was something gradual, but I still remember that Saturday morning when I had a hard time getting out of bed and, while listening to my daughters playing with their father, I asked myself two things: how did I get here? , this is what I want? And from that moment on my brain couldn’t stop thinking about anything else.
In 2010 I was already divorcing my daughters’ father, who cried asking me not to separate him from them. Something that totally surprised me because it was never in my mind to ask for full custody of my daughters. We were pioneers in Extremadura, and they reluctantly granted us the share, with the commitment that the girls would spend six months in my house and the next six in his, with alternating weekends. We accept before the judge, but we never comply. The girls spent half the week with me and the other with their father, or on demand, whatever they wanted, whatever they needed.
A very difficult time in which my daughters’ father was very angry with me—he blamed me for having destroyed his family, his life plan—and I was overwhelmed by events. A time in which I had to bite my tongue or measure my words so as not to argue for pointing out that the girls went out into the street disheveled, with blemishes or stains on their clothes; in which the demons drove me away because of how I dressed them even though I went to their house often to be with them and took the opportunity to leave the outfits already prepared in their closets, even when I was separated: pants with their corresponding shoes and headband , dressed with their bows, etc. My daughters were well cared for, with their needs perfectly covered, they were two happy girls who felt loved, but I also, forgive the frivolity, wanted them to go out into the street looking well cared for…
Small details
It was precisely because of these small details that I discovered that my daughters’ father had a partner again: the day they came home with their pigtails perfectly polished, at the same height, their parting straight, their clothes very clean and matching their shoes. and the hair bows. That day I knew there was another woman in his life. A woman who was attentive to details, who cared about pampering them. A woman who not only fell in love with her father, but also with them, which was very easy because they are wonderful girls. And that not only did she accept them as part of her relationship, but she was also involved in raising her. A woman who played with them, who read them and bought them stories, who kissed them, hugged them and cared for them as if they were her own daughters. A woman with an open smile who has always been there for them, and who has also made her parents part of her family.
My daughters do not have four grandparents, but six. The two “new” ones have taken them to the theater, to the cinema, to concerts, they debuted as grandparents with their son-in-law’s daughters. So, when some time later, for professional reasons, I had to leave Extremadura to return to Madrid and he was left exclusively in charge of our daughters, I left calmly. I know how extremely sexist that sounds, but that’s how I felt and how I feel fourteen years later.
Although we have been living in the same city for a long time and the girls go from one home to the other, I know that when I am not there, they have a woman at home who listens to them, regulates them emotionally, understands them and cares about their well-being. . The same one who for many years, in my absence, took them to the pediatrician or took them to the emergency room when her father couldn’t, and rocked them when they had a fever, she worried that their meals, snacks and dinners were healthy. The one who answered the phone when I felt there was a problem with the girls and gave me her opinion or accepted mine. One of the many women who every day make the word stepmother lose its pejorative meaning. The other mother of my daughters.
