Uncomfortable Beginnings

Why am I taking this step today?

I am […] more aware of the importance of real talk about parenthood as an experience and a practice, and serious unpacking of the policies around maternal health and education.

The first time I considered starting a blog or a YouTube channel was in 2014. I had just gotten my acceptance at Oxford University and thought about how this had always seemed like an impossible dream to achieve.

At the time, I was concluding my third year of teaching at a university in Tunis, Tunisia and working on a Master’s in International Relations at the same institution. I thought of all my classmates and students who would have also considered Oxford unattainable and wanted to document my year there for them.

The reason why integrating such an establishment seems to impossible is not due to our lack of belief in our ability to actually study well and succeed once there, but rather this concern that countries of the Global North will always see our degrees and education as “insufficient” somehow. The issue was and is structural, built on a foundation of historical injustice that many have written about before and many still speak eloquently about.

Anyway, I wanted to share that experience but the overthinking part of my mind went into overdrive.

What would people think if they saw me, a professor, suddenly creating YouTube videos about the most mundane, everyday experiences of a student in the U.K.? (Of course this concern came out of a prejudice against YouTube videos and the idea that sharing information is only highbrow if published in a journal or reputable publication of some sort.)

I thought about it again when I moved to live and work in New York... How I wish I had shared my amazement at the city then and my impressions of the U.N. system.

Upon moving back home to Tunisia I was too busy with work, but the thought occurred to me again when the pandemic started and I felt this urge (like millions of others) to document those days to share with those of us all trapped and seeking contact via our screens - even if it was simply a diary of failed attempts at a kitchen garden and painting.

All of this is to say that I toyed with the idea of writing “unprofessionally” on my own platform, and I struggled even harder with sharing my face, my voice, my quirks, my shyness and vulnerability to a work so full of cruelty, self-righteousness, and cyber-bullying. I regret the missed opportunities to share, and to make a wider network of friends from whom I can learn and with whom I can exchange thoughts on different subjects.

But what changed?

What happened in April - May of 2022 that is pushing to give it a go? To put myself out there?

I think I’ve learned so much from women on social-media in the last year that I have accepted that there is absolutely no sense in being condescending towards the platforms until alternatives emerge. I speak of alternatives because it is absolutely vital to question how they are being allowed to be used for a plethora of questionable profit-motives with terrible social and mental health outcomes.

Over the past year I’ve had a child and it has been simultaneously the most humbling and difficult period of my life but also the most empowering.

I am equally more aware of the importance of real talk about parenthood as an experience and a practice, and serious unpacking of the policies around maternal health and education. I have scoured the internet for evidence-based advice, and have spent sleepless nights reading one study and then another that arrived at the complete opposite conclusion. I have also dived deep into Tunisian infant health and breastfeeding groups on Facebook where I found lots of kindness and good intention but also horrific amounts of misinformation.

I believe that it is this last point that has pushed me to take this honestly terrifying first step. It is also the reason why my first series of videos and posts will focus on questions pertaining to post-partum health. All the things I simply couldn’t figure out easily on my own, I hope to share with you.

I’m also hoping I will be able to educate myself and through sharing, others, on public policies in different sectors and how they work (or do not work.)

Well… here we go.

To new, albeit uncomfortable, beginnings!