For us, Mother’s Day 2019 is all about the things we’ve got from our mamas - whoever that may be. From your biological, adopted or step mum to a big sister, friend or uncle, we’re celebrating all mother figures. Lara, AKA @laramallo was raised by her adoptive mum, Nanny. We caught up to talk bossiness and Brazil...
Introduce yourselves…
Lara: I’m Lara Mallo and I’m 31. I’m a Creative Director and Social Media Specialist and I live in Amsterdam - I do a lot of things on Instagram for companies.
Nanny: I’m Nanny, Lara’s mum. We adopted her from Brazil when she was one.
What made you decide to go to Brazil to adopt?
Nanny: I speak Spanish and had already been going to Colombia and other countries. There was a lady who had already adopted two girls from Brazil from a lawyer and within three months, he called me and invited me over to get to know each other. We went to Brazil ourselves to get her. All my friends thought I was crazy.
Did you always know you were adopted?
Lara: I think so, yeah. When you know you don’t have the same colouring as your parents, it’s like ‘what’s going on?’ So I knew immediately. My parents have always been very open about it and we were living in a small village with all white people so it was very normal to have people asking me where I’m from. They couldn’t hide it!
Describe each other…
Lara: My mum is very social, she’s very talkative, she’s kind. She likes to go outside - if she stays indoors, she goes crazy! She has a lot of friends and she’s very smart and intelligent. She knows everything about every building, and cities and flowers. She’s like an encyclopedia.
Nanny: Some people say the feeling is different when you have an adopted child but from the first moment that I had her in my arms, I felt like we could never have made a nicer child. She can be bitchy! But it was love. She works so hard and I’m proud of her.
What have you got from your mum?
Lara: I think the bossiness. I’m less bossy than I used to be 15 years ago - my friends stopped me. My mum can be bossy but it’s a strength, I think it can be negative and positive.
Nanny: If you have an adopted child and you raise them well, it makes them better than anyone. There’s more pressure to raise a good child if you have an adopted child. I had to be firm with her or else she would walk over me.
What was your relationship like growing up?
Lara: I was trouble I think. But I was secretly trouble. My parents divorced and my father is very yes or no, no inbetween. But my mum is different. If I want to do something she’ll let me do it. If I wanted to play the drums, the saxophone, singing, dancing, she would say ‘let’s go’. My friends knew that I was good at hiding things so I had a friend who had a boyfriend and he was Turkish and her parents didn’t want that so he climbed on the roof when I was in the attic and there was a window that went to the roof and all the boys and his friends came onto the roof.
Nanny: I knew! Because one day one old lady said to me ‘I saw a man on the roof and he went through the window’. And then I asked Lara and she completely denied it and she acted offended that I thought she would do that. In my head, she wasn’t that difficult. The terrible twos were more difficult.
It sounds like you’ve been a strong woman and a powerful woman in her life...
Lara: Yes, I’ve got my social aspect from my mum. I grew up with four parents, including my stepdad and stepmum, so I’ve got a lot of aspects from them. We’re like a unit.
How would you describe your mum?
Lara: Kind and generous and social.
How would you describe Lara?
Nanny: A big energy.
