Laura Baena, founder of ‘Malasmadres’.
Laura Baena collects in a book her experience at the head of a group that has achieved its own voice in society
In 2014, with her first child in her arms, Laura Baena (Málaga, 1981) realized that motherhood was not as romantic as it had been painted. “I felt very alone,” now recalls this publicist by profession. She felt like a ‘bad mother’. That is why she began to tell her about her problems on Twitter in order to reach everything that society expected of her.
And there she discovered that she was not alone: on the contrary, thousands of women shared her feelings. That was the origin of the Club de Malasmadres, a group that in these years has opened new debates and has reached the highest political levels. Pedro Sánchez participated in one of her acts in 2018. Baena has collected her experience of almost a decade at the helm of the club in the book ‘I do not resign’ (Lunwerg).
“We have managed to place the need for conciliation on the public agenda through initiatives that not only involve women,” explains the author. In her opinion, measures such as the reduction of the working day or leave of absence are designed only for women “and lack transversality.” “Many women see them as paternalistic protection,” she sums up.
Although he acknowledges that steps have been taken in the last decade, Baena believes that “co-responsibility” has only reached a minority of households. “Most men understand stewardship as ‘helping’, and that’s just the first part. In the second would be the ‘executive parents’, who do what they are told to do. And the final stage, the most desirable, is that of the parents who share the mental load that fatherhood and motherhood entail.