Women's Mental Burden

“A year ago, I was in Malaga recording a story when I got the phone call that would change my life. My son Damià had just gone into surgery. It took me twelve hours to get to Barcelona and hold him in my arms. When I arrived, I had already taken a decision: I never wanted to be separated from my young children again. Would a father have taken the same decision I did?”

The income tax return, the family reunion, the grocery list, calling the insurance company, washing clothes… This mental burden is the syndrome of women overwhelmed by the accumulated responsibilities of their daily lives. Because, much as we may hate to say it, the struggle for equality at the professional level has not been paralleled by a similar one at home. The result: women now live with two burdens: their career and their family lives.

This book brings this problem to the forefront, departing from a single incontrovertible fact: reconciliation is impossible. The everyday stories that make up this book tell of overwhelmed mothers whose lives have turned into an impossible balancing act. Because, as Samantha says, “We have decided to treat as natural behaviors and tasks that are anything but, and calling them a mental burden is a way of recognizing that we need to change something if we want to feel free.”