Natalia Barcáiztegui has a degree in Economics and Business Administration and in Marriage and Family Studies. Master's Degree in Marriage and Family from the University of Navarra and Coach of development staff (EFIC). She advises adolescents, young adults and parents, and in her project Querer Mejor offers conferences and courses at training on Education affective-sexual. In this interview Natalia presents the book she recently published, graduate "Sexuality in the rollo generation".

What are young people looking for through today's relationships? What do they find?

I think they seek what has always been sought: to respond to the vocation of human beings to love and be loved in order to be happy. The problem is that today's society transmits a deformed concept of love. It confuses love as a virtue, that love that leads to a full life, with substitutes that are not capable of achieving it. Love is confused with pleasure, with sex, with physical attraction, with falling in love... And we cannot reduce happiness to well-being, to pleasurable sensations... The human being is bodily and spiritual, that is why in addition to earthly pleasures we must nourish the desires of the soul, the spiritual joys. 

So when we settle for substitutes for love, we feel a great emptiness. That is what young people find today. 

But let us not forget that what lies deep down is a desire to love and be loved. We are designed that way, we have that imprint. 

What is the best way to help young people to better live their intimacy/sexuality (relationships) without imposing anything?

I think that in order to educate sexuality it is fundamental to educate for love. We have to educate to love, to transmit an adequate concept of love as a search for the good of the other and in that submission, to find happiness. We must explain the meaning and significance of human sexuality. As it is an expression of the capacity to love, the body will have to learn to express this love adequately. 

When we reduce sexuality to its corporal dimension, to the physical contact , to pleasurable gratification, we are losing the dimension that characterizes human sexuality, the spiritual dimension, and this generates a great emptiness. By having a corporal and a spiritual dimension, the consequences of sexuality affect the whole person. 

To live sexuality in a way that is adequate to human nature, the emotions, the sexual impulse, must be guided by intelligence and will (spiritual dimension). For all this, young people need judgment and a lot of accompaniment. It is important that they know how to get up after falls, learning from their mistakes. 

How to better train parents and educators?

Parents and educators need information and training. Information to know the reality of the present moment and training to be able to give convincing arguments to make sense of their behavior. 

We have a context that differs greatly from framework educational of the previous generation. The affective relationships that adolescents and young people had 10 years ago (not even those of 5 years ago) are nothing like the ones they have today. This reality must be well known in order to be able to face the problems that arise. Different learners require a different Education . 

That is why, in my opinion, it is a priority to awaken this need in educators and parents. We cannot think that we can use the educational formulas that were effective at another time in history. 

What tools or insight has the MMF given you to directly help youth, parents and educators?

I always say that the Master's Degree in Marriage and Family (MMF) at the University of Navarra has been a turning point in my life:

• It has allowed me to reorient my professional degree program . I studied Economics, also at the University of Navarra, and discovered my vocation years later. There was no other degree program that responded to my concerns and the MMF had all the answers. 

• It has provided me with in-depth knowledge in a wide issue of subjects. The MMF provides a very comprehensive training , which invites you to go deeper and provides you with material for a lifetime. 

• It has given me the privilege of sharing this learning with teachers of the highest intellectual level and staff, which have been a motivation to continue studying and dedicate myself to help and transmit knowledge to a wider audience. 

• The bond generated with fellow alumni is another great contribution of the MMF. It creates very close ties and a relationship that lasts over time with an unparalleled spirit of friendship and partnership . 

• Finally, it has given me security. The source of training is fundamental. An intense work with the professors of Master's Degree gave me confidence and fluency in expressing my opinions and knowledge. Since then, I have not stopped studying, writing and training. One of the fruits of this work is that publishing house Rial trusted me to publish, in June 2022, my first book, Sexualidad en la generación del rollo, aimed at adolescents, young people and parents, to have an adequate concept of love and sexuality. And we are already with the second one!