Lisolette Driscoll was all of us when she snapped a picture of her COVID life as a parent
Lisolette Driscoll had a very omicron week — one that more and more working moms can relate to with each passing day. Faced with sick kids, positive tests, and an ongoing job to do, she stopped to take a picture of the madness.
“I’m just another mom working in America during a pandemic,” the story reads at the top. “Ava is positive via another PCR test today.”
Then she labels the rest of the picture, and it’s just too real:
Landry. Eyebrows jacked. Showered last night. Laundry. Anxiety. Laundry. Working. Vaxxed and boosted. COVID-positive baby. Nursing.
“Thinking and worrying about everything,” she writes in the caption.
Driscoll told Scary Mommy that it all started with an exposure at daycare (sound familiar?) for her 20-month-old daughter, Ava. That was followed by a mixture of positive and negative tests (again — familiar?) and the realization that their older daughter, Lily, had been exposed and needed to stay home from pre-k to keep other kids safe.
Both Driscoll and her husband work from home, and her healthcare job has been extremely stressful because of the pandemic.
“Mondays are always hard in general,” she says. “I work for a health insurance company… I’m behind in my work because it’s just been too busy… and then BAM to be hit with the thought that both girls would be home is just overwhelming and impossible to imagine.”
Of course, she was faced with doing everything, all at once.
“I used my lunch break to put Ava down for a nap. Towards the end of the day she started being clingy and wanted to be nursed…. so I was just sitting at my desk.. trying to work and she’s basically hanging off my nipple while I try my best to work and I just snapped a picture and in my head I just thought like this is every mom in America…. doing too much… trying her best… barely keeping herself above the tides.”
She shared the picture in her stories, and later on her main Instagram page, which under normal circumstances is a roll of pictures showing peace, organization, and she enviable shots of a joyful motherhood.
“I think Instagram can be an amazing way to connect with other people and a way to feel like you’re not alone,” she says. “I’ve been helped by so many other women showing real life and talking about struggles so whenever I can I like to do the same thing…if we can help even just ONE other Mom by showing her she’s not alone then we’ve done a wonderful thing.”
The story does have a kind of happy ending. She tapped out and asked to activate her paid time off for a COVID-related issue — which all employers should be offering for their employees. And now, for the rest of the week, she has one less thing to worry about while she cares for her kids.
“Covid PTO activated,” she writes. “Thank goodness!!! Expect nothing from me this week except being a mother and surviving.”
Driscoll says she’s gotten a totally positive response from her posts.
“I’m surprised what a big and supportive response it’s gotten. I think women need reminders that they’re not alone in their struggles with work and covid and child care.”
