I recently spoke with Valentine Caporale, Valentine Reine des tartines on Instagram, mother of two little boys, Leo and Axel. I wanted to talk with her about her relationship with her role as a mother, her way of managing her personal and professional life and her definition of the ideal mother. I have transcribed our conversation for you.
My first question: was becoming a mother a given for you? Since when? How many children did you dream of having?
Becoming a mother was not always obvious to me, on the contrary. For a long time I did not think I would have children one day. It is linked to my personal history. My mother's illness, which accompanied me for a large part of my childhood and adolescence, was something that deeply marked me. That is why I did not want to become a mother because I was too afraid that the same thing would happen to me and that my children would live with the illness and that I would leave, as she left when I was 18. I really did not want to repeat that and I always saw myself with a sword of Damocles hanging over my head in relation to the illness.
In reality, it became obvious the day I met Conor, really. Our meeting really changed my life, it's a bit corny to say that but it's completely true. Looking back, I think it was always deep inside me but I didn't dare think about it, I didn't dare dream about it because I was too afraid of reproducing what I had experienced. I'm still afraid, but the desire to have children was much stronger.
Just based on what I've experienced, I thought two children were good because there were two of us with my brother. But Conor, even though they are two too, he always wanted to have 3 or 4 children, 3 especially, but I was always afraid of the middle child who feels less comfortable in the family. So, we split the difference, with 4! For now we have two children, maybe we'll only have two but potentially we would be really happy to have more.
How do you manage your professional and personal life?
As best I can, but it's not always easy. It was very, very complicated when I was still working on the radio. I did the morning shows for 6 years, during those 6 years I had my two children, it was very difficult to reconcile. The nights were very choppy and complicated, my first who is 4 years old is just starting to sleep through the night, and I got up at 3:45 every morning to go and host the show. When I got home, I had a lot of time available for the children, but I was very tired, I couldn't take naps and Leo, my first son, went to bed late. I couldn't devote myself to my "second job", social networks. I could only do it once he was in bed... Without being able to go to bed too late either because afterwards the night would be rotten and the alarm would go off very early. That's why the children were both in daycare, never 100% but still. It also allowed me to find a little rhythm between radio and social networks and to spend quality time with my children.
Now it's different, they're both at school, so that leaves me a lot of time, too much I think (I think school is way too long). I have a lot of "free" time to work. During the day I manage to organize my work between social networks, opening my restaurant and other projects. The fact that they are at school allows me to schedule my work during the day. From the moment they come home from school I am only there for them until they go to bed, once they are in bed, well I go back to my computer and work a little more. That, I would like to manage to stop, the ideal for me now would be to put the children to bed and have my evenings with Conor because we miss that too.
How do you manage to separate the professional and the personal?
I show a lot of things on social media, I share a lot, but I obviously keep a lot to myself too. We show what we want to show, that doesn't mean that I only show the positive, I also talk all the time about the fact that we sleep very badly, that we are knackered and everything but there are still things that I keep to ourselves. These are mainly moments between us, it is very important to do it. I think you have to have your own guardrail to know what you are going to expose and what you are going to keep to yourself. Dissociating the professional and the personal is a case by case basis, for example for Axel's birthday I only showed a small part, there were a lot of people and I didn't show anyone because some close friends don't want to be on social media, they don't want to appear. They completely understand that it's my job, but I totally respect the fact that they don't want to be part of my social networks.
How would you define the perfectly imperfect mom?
She is the mother who listens to the needs of her family, her children, and who does what she can as best she can. She is the one who will always try to offer the best to her children, the most beautiful life, the most comfortable. But above all who will always try to be present physically and morally and who will always be there to accompany them in difficult times as in happy times, who will always be a support in all circumstances. For me, that is the perfectly imperfect mother, she is the mother on whom we can count no matter what happens, the mother who agrees to pass for a crazy person in the street if suddenly she needs to make one of her children laugh, the one who doesn't care what people will say. A mother who does what she has to do, what she has in her guts, in her heart, so that her children are as happy as possible.
I wanted to thank Valentine once again for taking the time to answer our questions! I loved talking with her!
The link to her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valentine_caporale/