Watching Working Parents – and Learning A Lot

By Sarah Robinson
NP Strategy

This ‘new normal’ is unlike anything any of us have ever experienced – forcing us to adjust and evolve our day-to-day routines. As our work has melded into our home lives, my respect and admiration of our team’s resilience has only grown, and I’d like to take this chance to praise a particular group of coworkers.

Watching working moms and dads juggle our new “remote” offices has been incredibly inspiring to me these past two weeks.  I’ve watched – on video conferencing – my coworkers juggle project meetings with the chaos and activities that go along with small children and families.  Amidst it all, they bring their very best to our workplace team.  Their commitment to their responsibilities and their jobs has truly been inspiring.  They are resilient, flexible, funny and real.

I’ve found great joy in hearing “Mommy, look!” in the background of an online work setting, or seeing a tiny hand pop into frame to wave. It’s brought me a new level of respect for the mothers I work alongside every day, but rarely get to see ‘in their element’ at home. One of my coworkers shared a hilarious picture of her son sitting in a pile of laundry completing his online class. That’s real life people.  And we all have to pitch in to make it to the other side of this raging river of a challenge.

Dads, don’t hate me, but I’m just floored at how these moms have adapted.  In our strategic communications world, we are helping companies stay afloat, and sometimes that means being available – even at unusual hours – to help write the difficult messages. It’s not rainbows and unicorns anywhere these days, and our moms are literally working non-stop. They’re meeting unprecedented expectations professionally while having their home lives turned upside down.

While I wake up and jump immediately into my work, they are waking up and feeding their kids breakfast, getting them ready for the day, helping them with homework; the list doesn’t end for them. While balancing their family, they are still providing great service to our clients, answering every email and taking every phone call.

So I salute every working parent right now.  May you have supernatural time to be parent, co-worker, teacher, and friend!  As you adapt to this new normal, you are showing 20-somethings like me how to press on despite the circumstances.

In closing, here’s a huge shout out to NP Strategy moms Amanda, Kara, Jesica, Stephanie, Erin and Blenda. Thank you for all that you do! Our team would not be the same without each of you.

NP Strategy Communications Specialist Sarah Robinson is an innovative storyteller with experience in social media strategy, issue advocacy and crisis communications. While attending the University of Southern Mississippi, she honed her craft by writing several specials that were published in the Hattiesburg Post. She also wrote for The Pursuit, a student-led public relations magazine. She was later awarded a PRAM Award of Excellence for her part in implementing a social media plan for a campus-wide anti-litter campaign. After graduating, Sarah moved to Charleston, SC where she worked with a political consulting and issue advocacy agency before joining the NP Strategy team.