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The harmony between Elsa Anka (Barcelona, 16 December 1965) and Lidia Torrent (Barcelona, 13 November 1993) is such that mother and daughter complete their messages in this joint interview. They already have experience in taking over as television presenters, for example, on the show First Dates, but this time the theme is self-care and their experiences combining being a mother with their hectic work lives.

They receive ZEN at the iconic Thompson Hotel in Madrid, as ambassadors of Anekke, a firm that makes an economic donation of 20,000 euros to the Spanish Women's Wheelchair Basketball Team to travel to Japan next April for the play-off tournament and thus be able to qualify for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

"When there is a joint project we enjoy it very much, especially if it is solidarity with women, because it is more difficult for us to open the way," says Elsa Anka, who has always involved her two children, as well as Miquel, Lidia's brother, in noble causes.

Lidia recently became the mother of a baby girl. Is there such a thing as a work-life balance? At first, in the middle of the postpartum period, my body asked me not to separate from it even in the second place. I felt that biological need at the same time that I wanted to live up to it in the workplace, so it has been a period of mixed feelings. As time goes on, that balances out. I spend a lot with Elsa, but when I leave, before I leave the house I always tell her: "Know that I do this for both of you." And do you ask your mother, who is here, for advice? She has raised us with a lot of autonomy. He always helps us from the suggestion, or from his vision, but never from an imposition like: "Do it this way because it's better". I feel a lot of freedom to raise my daughter because I do it from intuition and the love I feel for her, although I may have references to help me. She has decided to share the experience of motherhood on social media. Doesn't it give him a little respect given the way the environment is? Lidia Torrent: I honestly don't care about someone else's judgment on a virtual level. And even more so when it comes to maternity. Elsa Anka: In the 90s, when Lidia was born, I was in a very powerful moment on television with Don't Laugh, which is worse, I did theater... And I took her everywhere, as she does now with her little girl. Lidia has eaten backstage and sets through a tube, because we were also based in Barcelona and the nerve center of the work was not there, so we traveled a lot. But the question was always addressed to me. "How can you be separated from your daughter?" And that was something that was never told to man. It's true what she says about the strong bond she feels, although there are men who develop that ability as well. We are different in the best sense of the word. But women, with that DNA of parenting, still adapt to this new modern life that forces us to separate from the baby and continue fighting for our goals, independence and profession. The father may be a merchant who travels or does not arrive home until the evening, but the woman is the one in question. Still today. We're still at it, aren't we? Aren't the questions still the same for men and women when they are public figures? Elsa Anka: You only have to look at the example of the Women's National Team and what it has achieved. But I have full confidence in women. We are very powerful. We have to respect each other more, sisterhood, support each other even if we don't share the same idea. The bar for wanting to achieve everything and be the perfect mother, the perfect woman for our partner, the best at work, is it set for us by society or by ourselves? Elsa Anka: We are the most demanding with ourselves, we judge ourselves before anyone does. We should learn not to judge ourselves or others. There are women who prioritize motherhood and want to spend more time with their daughter and other mothers who return soon, and we don't know the circumstances of any of them. Lidia Torrent: Yes, we probably are. But it's all too hard for all of them to prosecute. The emotional management I have now is different, I just had to wait a little bit, but when you want to improve yourself it's hard to wait. Eventually it comes. What helps you find balance? Elsa Anka: I admire Lidia a lot because she has always prioritized her personal growth. It may sound corny, but I think my daughter is very beautiful, and above all From that physical beauty, he casts an extraordinary light and continues to work his intellectuality to discover and grow. Lidia Torrent: I was just going to answer that my focus is therapy and self-taught personal growth. Elsa Anka: This wasn't prepared! Lidia Torrent: Thanks to my mother, I have this deposit. Elsa Anka: I've always been very curious, I liked to listen to myself and learn to be good with myself. They're also both very sporty, aren't they? Elsa Anka: Forever. Mine was a great admiration for women who had a fibrous body, like swimmers, gymnasts... I would have loved to be an elite athlete: a skater. Physical exercise has a huge impact on our mental health. Lidia Torrent: Since I was a little girl I have practiced all the sports there have been: handball, basketball, tennis, soccer, beach volleyball... What has taken me a little longer is connecting with the gym. I've really enjoyed competing and machines bore me and I walk around if it's not with a personal trainer by the hand. Thus I have seen what it is to have the mind in the here and now. The absolute focus on surviving the exercises [laughs]. It seems that your thing is more about genetics than diets, what relationship do they have with food? Elsa Anka: We are a microwave society: we want everything and that's it. I looked at myself in the mirror these days and thought that the bikini operation starts when summer ends. Lidia Torrent: You've always had a discourse at home about health and not about bikini surgery. Obviously, you don't give up liking yourself when you look in the mirror, but my mother has insisted that you don't have to eat well to show off the great pink bikini, but because it has direct consequences on your health. When you understand that, it's easier to choose, even if it sounds like a cliché. I've always liked sweets and when I was little I was restricted from sweets or I ate 500, but I don't live it from frustration, like I want to eat it and I can't, but consuming it at specific times but not with anguish. But they'll have their moments of emotional hunger, like everyone else, won't they? Lidia Torrent: If I get anxious I eat raspberries or celery, something that I know is not bad for my health. But not because you're going to get fat. It's because binge eating is unhealthy. Elsa Anka: What I was going to do with the bikini operation is that you can't spend the whole year eating garbage to generate a beastly restriction the last three months before summer. My son-in-law always teases me about celery, but my kids eat everything from a young age. Lidia is very sybarite, in fact, she likes to eat a lot. And if he has to have the cake, he does it happily on time. The important thing in food is awareness. If you have information, you choose better. Now people are starting to talk more about acceptance after giving birth, how did you feel when you looked in the mirror when you got home? Lidia Torrent: I have diastasis abdominis, but I hope he can recover. I have to do hypopressives. Elsa Anka: I ended up having surgery but 15 years later, with a chronic injury because no one warned me. You may have more or less belly after giving birth, but that's not the problem. It's not aesthetic, but for health and well-being. Losing your abdominal girdle causes your body to reposition itself differently and you suffer from lower back, as happened to me. There are some consequences functional, beyond the fact that one wants to put the breast in its place to look better, which is very legitimate. But the collateral damage of childbirth also impacts a woman's well-being. Is the idyllic image of motherhood beginning to be demystified? Elsa Anka: The hard and sacrificial part has been done by all the mothers of the world since they have given birth in other times and another society. We're not discovering anything if we tell a mother that her boob is going to fall off, that you're not going to sleep... It's always been there. Lidia Torrent: Well, but now it's being given a voice. In my pregnancy, my body was my temple. Everything I've been through, including empty chest syndrome, because it's not the same now, I feel like I wouldn't change it. Probably, for me, the hardest part of motherhood has been breastfeeding. It was a tough trip, but I was accompanied by good professionals and I managed to get through it well. I have never looked at myself in the mirror with rejection even though what I saw was not what I was used to seeing. I've felt powerful.

  • HBPR