On the occasion of Father's day, which is just around the corner, we are making these days the Special Bloggers Dad, with interviews with some of the best-known parents in the network, who usually tell us about their lives in their respective blogs since they are parents.
He doesn't visit today Joaquím Montaner, father of 6 creatures, author of several blogs such as Parents count or 1 + 1 are 8 and one of the bloggers who is today at the forefront of issues of equality between men and women. But without more I will let it be the same as the one who shows up.
Who is Joaquim Montaner?
They have not really called me that for a long time ... dad, dad, ... is what I hear most. I am 40 years old and a little over ten years ago I fell in love with my wife. She had four kids, two girls and two boys. And so I became a dad, a multipapi ... of a stroke.
Later we looked for smaller ones, of the two, and two more came, another girl and another boy. And we became a family of 8 people ... and, since we didn't have enough, mom and I decided to incorporate a few pets into the house: dogs, fish, turtle, rabbit, cats ...
How is everyday life in such a big family?
Really hard, very hard ... I don't want to discourage anyone, but it's very powerful. He thinks that the # girl1 is 14 years old and the youngest, # boy6, is only 5.
Although the largest are increasingly involved in different issues related to care (own, of the other children or the house) there are still many tasks that depend primarily on the adults of the house.
It is not the same to have to cook for 8 people than for two. Nor is the number of washing machines that we have to put daily at home equal to that of a family with a child. It is not the same to have in mind the contents of the curriculum of a couple of kids than those of a strip that goes from 3rd ESO to P5.
In addition you have to temper the nerves very much ... you have to get patience from where there isn't; you have to get spaces 1 to 1 and this is really difficult. Each child is completely different from her brothers and sisters. Everyone has their illusions, tastes and hobbies ... and give a (half) answer to this ... is frankly exhausting.
Being able to hold "n" simultaneous conversations ... make mastodonic purchases, ... imagine, for example, the beginning of the academic year ... clothes, school supplies, books, ... to go crazy hear.
We cannot forget either the house, the plants, the garden, ...
You also have to manage to (and this is very important) continue to take care of your relationship.
And, to top it all, you have to ask all these questions in record time because both mom and I work as an employee in our employment centers.
You are one of the blogger parents that I know that more is fighting for equality between men and women. There are people who believe that educating on equality is teaching your child to iron their shirts, but what are the basic guidelines for doing so? Is it enough to take care only of male children?
This question has a lot to do with responsibility. In many places you read or hear joint responsibility. This is not bad at all ... but I think this concept is quite lame today. Our creatures are NOT predestined to establish couple relationships, much less to have offspring. This will be your decision. Where will be the responsibility for a single? Or for someone who chooses to live alone?
I think we should (especially boys, parents) to turn these speeches around and: from co-responsibility, nothing hears ... from helping at home, nothing hears; from just the "simple" questions, nothing hear ... what happens to the logistics? What happens to the coordination of the house? ... how simple it is to say: "I under the garbage" (but the shit you pick it up) or "I am going to buy" (the list that you have made me ...) for putting a couple of direct examples.
I do NOT have the responsibility of anything. I do have the responsibility of taking care of my children.
It is time to take another step, much more serious and risky: co-responsibility sounds, increasingly, to that of "I help at home" I, personally, (which at the same time I feel half of something precious that is the relationship that I have with my wife and that I am also part of a family ecosystem of eight direct people, more dogs, more fish, ... and in which every time some of the people who compose it suffers, we suffer the rest of the ecosystem , and, also, we are part of different spaces such as schools, jobs, social relations, ... and after wider spaces and macro circles such as society, the global village, ...)I DO NOT have the co-responsibility of anything. I do have the responsibility of taking care of my kids.
Whether or not you have a partner, live with another adult or not, ... the Responsibility (s) of care is (are) of all together and of those who care in particular (within care I am including here moms, daddies, ... to each and every one ... but in an individual way) and this, all this, ... leads me to think that in one of the areas that I have to insist, not to perpetuate topics or stereotypes, or archetypes, or call it what you want gender ... is in the care, in the care of my children: that they see me working hard for their wellbeing, because they have a safe and clean home, because they have a good diet and because they receive love.
And, within all of the above, I know where else I have to insist and where I have to make more effort is with my little boys, not forgetting to empower my girls. Many times it is desperate, because they DO NOT have the same disposition as their sisters. It does not arise from taking care of themselves and you have to tell them, you have to insist. But I am also very clear about the phrase:
Don't worry if your little ones don't listen to you. Be careful they are always looking at you. Robert Fulghum
That is why I strive to ensure a peace at home, both in ours and in that of my little ones when they are autonomous people and are flying with their own wings ... I want them to be able to make a life in which they are not remnants for other people ... I want them to be able to focus their energies on love and participation and not escaping, deception or denial ... and I want many things ... and as Scarlet said: "I swear to God ... that my little ones will know how to care and know how to take care of themselves with justice and fairness" Because they will be responsible people.
I want my children to be able to live a life in which they are not remorse for other people
This will help so that they (and they too) are agents of change in turn ... in their lives, in their environments, in their societies, ... about themselves and also about their friendships or about their social relationships and not remain impassive or Dumb when they see other men abusing women or girls (I'm not just talking about sexual abuse ... I'm also talking about micromachisms, terribly everyday, such as “I help at home” or “do it yourself that goes better and I don't know”)
What has brought you to be a blogger dad?
Quite. Meet other fellow "bloggers", share concerns, experiences, ... Know that you are not a freak. Personal enrichment (I'm not talking about something economic huh?)
And also a lot of serenity and tranquility ... there are many entries that I do not get to publish but that have a brutal therapeutic effect and that allow me to reflect on my own practice, on what I do ... and help me realize how I am wrong many times .
And ultimately, a huge satisfaction. Especially lately that my elders read me :-)
The world of children has been until recently a world of women, this is changing and every day more parents are seen getting involved in the education of their children. What do you think is still our Achilles heel?
It is true that we see more and more parents going to cabbages, in health centers accompanying their children to pediatric appointments, sharing more time with their offspring, making decisions about education, health, shopping, etc. Yes, it is changing, but this change is slow, very slow, too slow in my opinion.
We have more parents present, yes sir. But I think our Achilles heel is precisely this: put the focus on "I am a present dad", "I am a responsible dad"; I explain: This presence, this responsibility (which is not Stewardship, on the other hand) leaves something out ... and this something is precisely our girls and our boys.
That is, parents have to incorporate and superimpose a new layer in our mind: We have to keep our creatures in mind; Creatures present. This is what parents should incorporate.
Whether we are physically with them or not. We are attending to our job responsibilities or not. We are in our leisure time or not. Always. Creatures present in our heads. We have to have concern for our offspring, for our dependents, incorporated into our mental schemes.
This is how we manage to blur and eliminate numerous topics present today in what is inserted in the collective imagination when referring to parents and caring for creatures.
The concept of "blogger dad" that talks about fatherhood and is informed about everything in this world is relatively new in our country, so much so that we can say that we are in diapers. How do you see the future?
Yes, it is new in the Spanish state, but not in other parts of the world. Specifically there are communities based in the United States that have more than 1000 associate parents. Here we are really starting to take flight, but for you to see a sample (if you now do a google search, the search engine returns approximately 421,000 results. Not bad at all)
We blogging parents are starting to take very concrete steps to work as a community
Four years ago I began a slow but endless search, thanks to an article by Of Moms and Dads about the mothers in the network that made me think about some things. The first locate parents blogs, locate bloggers dads; In that first whisk, I insist almost four years ago, I found 16 blogger dads.
Nowadays, after almost 30 updates of this list of blogger dads, many sites have been incorporated and I have located 97 blogger dads. Some of them are authentic ironbloguers and load content with a fairly high frequency; others we go a little slower.
We are also beginning to take very concrete steps to work as a community, to get tangled up, to be connected to each other. In the last quarter of 2014 I built a community / group on Facebook with the name #papásblogueros. To belong to this group there are some previous questions:
Gradually the community is self-regulating and, after almost half a year now, I can tell you that it works alone. Although it is also true that we are not too many (yet) there: today we are in 35 daddies bloggers about the 97 that are in the list.
It has been a pleasure to have you in our house Joaquim and I hope that soon we will see changes in our society.
