The Mama Bear by Chairman Mom

I’ve spent much of the last 10 weeks feeling guilty. 

No, not guilty because I’ve been roaming around without a mask or crowding public beaches. I’m still locked down. I have asthma thanks to a hospitalization from pneumonia a few years ago. I’m well aware that lung-related illnesses that don’t kill you also don’t make you stronger: My three-year battle to get my asthma diagnosed and treated isn’t something I’d wish on anyone. Nor was the pneumonia. And pneumonia-like symptoms are considered a “mild” case of COVID-19.  Read more...

We have four (!!) virtual Chairman Mom meetups this week that range from a chat with your friendly neighborhood epidemiologist, Adimika Arthur, to a major career boost with the phenomenal Joanna Bloor (free hour of Bloor coaching?! Don’t miss this!), to a fundraiser for cat rescue where we all learn how to make a bespoke cocktail from a celebrity mixologist (mocktail version too!), to the ULTIMATE YA novel geek out/book club with New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Hanover. 

We have a big enough event staff now that I only “have” to go to two of these, but I honestly think I’m going to go to all four because does anything capture the breadth of all the things we need and want right now better??? Read more...

Newsletter editor Lily here.

I mentioned this in passing a few weeks ago, but back in January, I suddenly had a strong desire to get a pet goldfish. I don’t even know what prompted it. Maybe I felt like nesting a little bit more or maybe it’s my nurturing gene (finally) growing in, but all of a sudden, a goldfish sounded like a great idea.

I immediately texted Kaitlyn, my roommate/close friend/person who deals with my shenanigans constantly, to which she sent me a very confused message that essentially amounted to “Is this your quarter-life crisis?” Read more...

Editor’s Note: Sarah and I (Lily) have been doing most of the talking during this pandemic, but we want to hear from YOU! If you have something to say about how you’re feeling in these strange, terrifying, and surreal times we’re living in and want to write a newsletter intro about it, send an email over to me at lily@chairmanmom.com.

Our intro today comes from Chairman Mom reader Samantha Barnes, who’s the co-founder and CEO of Raddish.

Despite an abiding love for my pretty-in-pink seashell bike in 1987, I never much liked biking. My mom, who at 76 mountain bikes and travels the world cycling, has spent over three decades feeling mom guilt about this fact. Read more...

“At least there’s gonna be less rape now.” 

That was the best “silving lining” that a friend of mine who has devoted her life to fighting for victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse gave me about the COVID-19 crisis this week. 

But she quickly undercut it by pointing to escalating domestic violence and a ticking time bomb of revenge porn, given online dating is all the dating there is right now. 

There are a lot of twists and turns of irony and fortune in a time like this that is upending everything, but it’s generally making life even worse for the underrepresented in society. The coronavirus itself hits men harder than it hits women. And yet, the efforts to contain it are definitely hitting women harder, as most of us feared.  Read more...

FINALLY! 

Tl;dr: NeedHop, the 1:1 help platform that spun out of Chairman Mom, now lets you offer PAID phone calls to people who need your help. 

Download the free app on iOS or Android, create a one page profile, and start earning $$$ for sharing your life experience with people who really need it! 

Let me know if/when you create a profile so I can book your first call!

Ok, now some background…

Many of you know about NeedHop, a company that was spun out of Chairman Mom late last year/early this year. Read more...

There seems to be a new strange divide happening amongst those who want the economy reopened and those who don’t. It isn’t as simple as partisan politics. 

Two weeks ago, those of us in blue states—including our governors—were scoffing at states like Georgia that were opening up, despite the agreed-upon things we should see before opening up not having been met.

Less than a week ago, California’s Gavin Newsom was closing beaches, as other states were opening up, and vowing to follow science, not the White House or protestors.  Read more...

Newsletter editor Lily here.

Is anyone else reverting back to strange habits that they haven’t had in years as quarantine goes on?

First, despite being more of a romance novel fan (as y’all know by now), I started picking reserving mysteries and thrillers from on my library app, which harkened me back to when I was a kid reading Nancy Drew books way past bedtime. For the first time in adulthood, I’m consistently reading that genre.

Two weeks ago, I spend my entire weekend playing The Sims, a game I’ve loved since I was 10 and play in spurts. When I was in college, I used to come home after finals and log onto Sims for my first 48 hours back in Florida, only stopping to grab something to eat or sleep for a few hours. The pattern seems to be repeating itself now. Read more...

Amid everything else that’s been going on in the last few months, we breezed right past a pretty big milestone: Chairman Mom launched to the public a little more than two years ago. There was a year before that of building the company and raising funds and assembling the team, and this newsletter has been going on for close to three years. 

But February 2018 was when the community launched to the public. 

I wanted to look up the date because recently I realized something pretty astounding as a personal milestone: I’ve lost 40 pounds since Chairman Mom launched. WHAT? I know. I can hardly believe it myself because I’ve worked so hard at it and it’s felt like a glacial pace of getting healthy.  Read more...

I’ve written before that Eli and Evie do this adorable thing where they argue—based on the opinion writing skills they’ve been learning in school—why I’m cooler than they are. I don’t love the inauthentic self-negging, but I do appreciate the ego boost. 

There are always a bunch of reasons, including my work accomplishments. The other day Evie phrased it a new way that struck me, “…And you run a made-up company!”

A made up company?? I assure you young lady, it’s very real, I reacted, cackles up. And then I realized what she meant: It was a compliment. Perhaps the highest compliment from a kid: It was a company that had come from nothing more than my imagination. It had roots in absolutely nothing else. And I had imagined so hard and strong it came into being.  Read more...