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Pre-Norah, my social media had no value! When she was about a year old, I’d started posting about her and down syndrome. It was honestly a cry for help—I hoped if I’d written about it, someone would reach out to me and tell me what to do to take care of her, because I didn’t have anybody relevant that I could reach out to. There is so much stigma around it, even talking about it is like walking on egg shells. I felt like I just needed to put it out there, and that’s how my JOURNEY on the internet began.
I had mums from different parts of the world reach out and share their stories of how they were dealing with it, and reading about their stories helped me a lot too. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone and helped me gain a lot of perspective. Either I could be stuck with a sense of helplessness, or I could make most of it and really learn how to enjoy life. Afterall, there wasn’t anything holding me back!
I quickly realised how accepting people were, and how this fear of being shunned is only in our heads. They may not know about it, but are emphathetic when you’re honest about it. The AWARENESS also helps other people speak about it too—vulnerability is also a sign of strength. And that’s the power of social media.
Slowly, my Instagram became a storybook of sorts. People loved reading about Norah, and I hope someday when she growns up, she’ll look back on her journey and be proud of this Legacy I’ve tried to build for her. There’s really no filter to what I document, it’s absolutely raw, honest, and real, and it’s the best de-stressor for me. I’m an OPEN BOOK, and I want to share both the positives and negatives, because my life is filled with both. I just choose to take away the positives and learn from the negatives. Of course, there will be people trying to tear you down on the way, but the way I see it is that it speaks volumes of their mindset and not my own. At the end of the day, this is my life, my journey, and one that I’m proud to SHARE, in the hope that it gives mums the same comfort I found when I first set foot on this digital soil.
Norah too, has grown to love being part of this virtual world. She knows that I’m recording her, so sometimes, if she’s struggling she’ll actually tell me not to record! She keep at it, better herself and when she’s ready to show off her skills, she’ll tell me to take her video!
She’s quite feisty like that. It really is amazing to see how being in this space has helped her Progress too. She learns from her mistakes, even at her age. And she’ll work hard towards progress. My goal was and will always be to build a legacy for her, one that she’ll be proud of. Song that best describes my relationship with social media: Easy On Me by Adele
As a doctor, my instagram was filled with health-related posts.
But my JOURNEY going through difficulties in conceiving, being pregnant in the pandemic, made me want to share my experiences with my followers. A lot of mums-in-the-making and new mums could relate to that, and it took off quite well. There’s a lot of information and advice available on the net, but more often than not, you don’t know exactly where to go. So, putting my real-time experience out there, whether it was postpartum fitness or striking a work-life balance, enabled me to help and inspire many mums.
But everything in life comes with its own set of PROS AND CONS. Creating content is not an easy task, especially with a baby to care for. Planning reels, scheduling time slots, monitoring engagement—I don’t know how people do it! Getting ready, finding the perfect lighting, the perfect frame! It can be very time consuming, and you may have a hard time separating the ‘real’ from the ‘reel’ if you don’t strike an appropriate balance. However, I’ve come to learn that being as real, raw and authentic as you can be does the job in itself. If you think to much about the aesthetic, the reach, etc, you can burn out, so just going with the flow has really worked for me.
For me, social media doesn’t interfere with my because I haven’t let it. If I have to post for a brand and I have a deadline, and if Shivaaya needs me too, I somehow push to accomplish both tasks. Ideally, this isn’t something I wouldn’t do in a non-social media world, but it isn’t much of a problem because I ensure about oversharing and being obssessive. I try to reply in detail to some of them because I feel better talking about it from my perspective, and I delete or block the nasty comments At some point, the next generation will be exposed to social media. And when that happens, everyone will have to figure out their own defence mechanism. Social media is tricky, and as parents, it’s on us to figure out how to navigate your way once you expose your li’l one to this big bad world.
