A media mom's story: The struggle is real

Newsday's features editor Debra Ravello Greaves, left, with her children: Kiffy, Koffy and Kerri Greaves. -
Newsday's features editor Debra Ravello Greaves, left, with her children: Kiffy, Koffy and Kerri Greaves. -

Newspapers, unlike other products that can stick to the same formula for months and years, have to come up with a new product daily.

Mothers, too, require the same amount of creativity, having to daily deliver on a range of tasks and services that can be overwhelming at times.

I remember an editor, Sunity Maharaj, jokingly enquiring during one of those old-talk fun times when I worked at the Express, "Who came up with the idea that women should work?"

Perhaps, some of us who chose journalism as a career may still be seriously enquiring, "What I doing working here still?"

The answer for most of us would probably be, “only because we love and enjoy what we do.” It definitely cannot be because of the salary ¬ which is the same in 2023 as it was since ten years ago.

As a young mother, I wanted to quit many times to devote more time to my family but as the main, and at times, the sole breadwinner, that was not an option.

I began working at the Guardian, mere months after leaving school, and for the past four decades have worked at the Express and Newsday, and back again. Apart from newspapers, I spent one week at a radio station and fled. I also taught mass communications and media-related courses, events management, and public relations and marketing at the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago ( COSTAATT) for over two years, when I made a career change. But, I ended up right back in the newsrooms.

For me, journalism always presented a conflict between profession and family. Balance was a difficult thing for many years. I worked some Sundays and public holidays, so going anywhere for a family long weekend was a very rare thing.

When my three children were quite young and in primary school, I was reassigned to the Express night desk – the department that did final editing, headlines and page design. My workday began at 2 pm. My children's school day ended at 3 pm.

Working nights meant homework help was done over the phone and checked when I got home – while they were sleeping – and corrections fixed in the morning before they headed out to school.

Newsday Features editor Debra Ravello Greaves with her son, Koffy Greaves when he came to TT in April to spend time with his mother. -

When I explained to the editor in chief the impact the night shift would have had on my children there was neither sympathy nor empathy.

"You still have a job," was the cold, unforgettable reply. I have had heartless responses through the years but that one cut very deep.

Editors in chief have a paper to run and they can sometimes appear to be devoid of human feelings. But, they have to make tough calls and if it falls to you, you either leave or fight on to the best of your professional ability. That’s how I have survived for decades – using both options. Challenges as a journalist mom are the norm.

I have also had sympathetic EICs who believed in me, like Kathy Ann Waterman, Lennox Grant and the late Therese Mills who showed concern over my family issues and my personal well-being.

Years later, with Waterman as EIC at the Express, I asked to be taken off the night desk, as I was going through an extremely difficult time in my family life.

Waterman put me back in the field as a reporter, which I had requested, after I properly mixed and messed up a story while designing a page. The bottom end of the story became the beginning instead and it appeared like that in the printed paper.

Going back on the road was one of the happiest times in my career. My children were adults by that time so the occasional night assignments were not as painful.

The 2020s and the covid19 pandemic presented yet another conflict between profession and family. I had a lot of anxiety over my teenage relative, who I was parenting, being alone at home for so many hours. Also, the “present but absent” and sleep possibilities that online classes presented were a major source of stress: with computer on, teacher teaching but student sleeping or gaming with FIFA football on the side. However, that too has passed, we have overcome and we fight on. The youth has now joined the workforce.

As a media mom, the struggles were tremendous before my children reached an independent age. There is still the feeling that you did not do enough. You question your parenting skills. No family is without its struggles, but you always try to do the best for your children and pray they don't blame you for the sacrifices you had to make to earn a living to help take care of them.

There have been broken relationships along the way as well but I press on. As Buju Banton says, "it's not an easy road, who feels it knows."

As mothers, we try our best and we can only hope for good results. But, according to my nine-year-old grandson Kaiden, my best efforts may not be that laudable and may even need an upgrade for the current era.

He often challenges my daughter's method of parenting with this: "Because your mom raised you like that doesn't mean you have to raise us the same way."

Comments

"A media mom’s story: The struggle is real"

More in this section