I started off quarantine with a certain amount of positivity: I was going to educate my kids, bake, get outside, blah blah blah…But quickly, as my work dried up (as a travel writer I know this makes sense) and our unprecedented circumstances remained painfully uncertain, my positive outlook began to falter. We had a scare with our unborn baby which didn’t help the situation and I had zero motivation to do anything productive. I have loads of ‘mom content,’ I suppose. To be honest, I was tired and sad.
The longer this quarantine goes on though, the more I think I am enjoying my life in the bubble. My husband is home for lunch and dinner instead of long days at the office, I don’t fight toddlers into car seats, I’m not rushing out of the door, I am gaining pregnancy weight in private, I am spending quality time with my family, getting to know them, enjoying them.
My digital game nights with my parents and siblings is something we all make time for and look forward to. We didn’t carve out this time together before. Time for connecting is defined and precious.
Working less has given me more time to feel in control of life and less like I am jumping from one moment to the next. There are aspects of this life that I want to continue once we return to our ‘normal’ lives.
Right now, however, society’s expectations of me are very low and I am okay with that. This lockdown is giving me the time I didn’t know that I needed. In fact, I’m not sure that returning to ‘normal’ is the right move for me. More on that to come.
But while I’ve been at home contemplating my existence and eating baked goods, I have been watching some of the moms I admire in television continue on. From the morning shows I appear on (to the shows I have yet to appear on), I see these amazing women connecting with their audiences, maintaining a social media presence and telling meaningful, powerful stories within this global pandemic. Every day they bring us the news; These are the women delivering us the updates on COVID-19.
Simultaneously, they are raising children, homeschooling, and all the many, many other things moms do that cannot be put into words. I wanted to know what I was like for these women in the ever-evolving, pandemic focused, media industry- how do they cope day to day? How to they decide which stories to tell? How have their jobs changed? How will their job change post pandemic? Will media ever be the same? Will their lives as mothers ever be the same? How do you tell the entire Canadian story if you can’t travel to other provinces?
If you don’t ask, you will never know, right? So that is exactly what I am doing. In this limited IG Live series, I will be chatting with awesome moms who show up on our tv screens every day, change hats (not literally…maybe literally? We can ask) and then show up for their family.
Join me as we chat to ‘Moms In ‘Reel’ Life on IGTV Live.
Check out my IG for more dates, times and guests.