February’s podcasts are in partnership with Fluère, an alcohol-free spirit from the Netherlands made for mixing. It comes in four editions. Original, Amber, Pink and Agave. Something for every taste; floral, spiced, raspberry or smoked. They are offering 15% off with the code ‘lovefluere’ on their shop website. Follow them on social media for cocktail tricks & tips!
This week we get stuck into parenting, family pressures, and coping with stress while restricted by the Covid 19 pandemic. Clare Pooley is the New York Times best selling author of The Authenticity Project her debut novel, which came out in 2020. She also wrote The Sober Diaries, and she started sharing her experiences of changing her drinking back in 2015 on her blog, mommy was a secret drinker. Marvyn Harrison (Marv) is the founder of Dope Black Dads, which grew out of a whatsapp group that he started in 2018. The group brings together a global community to have positive and constructive conversations about Black fathers in the male parenting experience.
Juggling parenting, working, and pandemic life
One of the biggest pressure points in the current global pandemic is the strain on family life. Parenting is always a juggling act, but right now it feels like we’re juggling with bombs that could go off at any moment. We’re dealing with work or furlough or being out of a job. We’re homeschooling, we’re confined with kids that need to be kept happy. There are financial worries, relationship issues, not having enough space, the ever present anxiety about someone we love getting sick. All of those things pile up, and they are so difficult to deal with. We know that there are parents in the Club Soda community and beyond who are struggling right now. And some folk are using alcohol as a coping mechanism to deal with stress, anxiety and the pressures of family life. So in this podcast, we wanted to bring together a couple of parents from different backgrounds, to talk about what life’s like right now, and importantly, how you can keep yourself and your family healthy and happy in the strange and unpredictable times.
Marv just got back from a work trip in South Africa. He and his wife have been parenting at quite a large distance, he’s been a video dad! They’ve both gone through highs and lows. There have been times when they’ve struggled to be motivated to parent in a powerful way.
"I think I'm more present to the parent-child divide more than even now because there's an element of expectation that children have... A new muscle that I'm excelling is being authentic and saying when I'm not feeling great" Marvyn