‘Welcome to Hell’: Meshel Laurie’s podcast helping parents navigate life in lockdown
The national lockdown has parents juggling their households and work like never before. And comedian Meshel Laurie is helping navigate the difficult task with some much-needed entertainment.
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Welcome to hell.
It was a sentiment expressed in the minds of parents around the world upon learning that they would soon be working while simultaneously supervising their children’s study from under one roof.
The feeling of doom and metaphorical fire was so strong for comedian and media personality Meshel Laurie, she dedicated a podcast series, Welcome to Hell, to navigating the new way of life.
Teaming up with fellow comedian Nelly Thomas, the duo invite guests – varying in expertise from psychiatrists to Gogglebox stars like Yvie Jones – to grind down the everyday struggles many of us face while in lockdown with children and family, aka. Hell.
For Laurie – who is weeks into homeschooling her 10-year-old twins – the podcasts have unexpectedly helped to shift her own perception of the situation.
“I don’t think any of us thought we would be able to do it,” she said.
“We went through this really intense baptism of fire. And I certainly was, you know, stomping around the house initially saying, I can’t do it, I can’t do this. A few weeks ago we spoke to Professor Steve Ellen – he is many things and one of them is a psychiatrist, and he talked us through the cycle of grief, which I had never really engaged with before. So now I do tend to think to myself, which stage am I at?
“Ever since I spoke with him, I think I’ve spent more times in acceptance, whereas I certainly was cycling, quite rapidly some days, through anger and unacceptance, disbelief, exhaustion.”
By way of personal circumstance, Thomas offers the gift of hindsight to listeners wondering if there is a light at the end of their isolation/homeschooling tunnel.
“She’s that person you can always say to, ‘you know, I’m not coming because I’m just too tired’, that person you can be honest with,” Laurie said.
“But also specifically she has a daughter with a chronic illness, a little girl, same age about 10.
“She has been homeschooling her daughter for a long time now. So many of the feelings that the rest of us were going through, she’d been through and dealt with. So she’s got a lot of resources.”
Ultimately, in times like these when we all are experiencing elements of our own personal hells, Laurie found sharing to be a great stabiliser.
“We try to get not only us just being super, super honest so that hopefully we can share at least as bad, if not worse things to help other people feel better about how they’re going, we are sharing people like the fun, relaxed psychiatrist and (Fahey Younger) the fun, hilarious real estate advocate.
“They can give us advice that we’re all desperate for, but also in a great way coming from someone who sounds like a real person going through real things.
“I think sharing is just a good way to alleviate stress.”
Welcome to Hell is the current season of Meshel Laurie’s Nitty Gritty Committee podcast series.
AN ALTERNATE VIEW FOR THE KIDS
Meshel Laurie describes the joy her family found in what would normally be a mundane occurrence:
“Kids are always watching and this time is going to be a huge memory for them.
“I’ve been finding the grocery shopping makes me really anxious and we recently got a huge grocery delivery because Coles started delivering again.
“I can tell you, literally, we were dancing, the happiness in the house. And I said to my husband, this is the kind of memory you never forget as a kid. This grocery delivery, they will never forget the happiness.
“My grandparents talking about memories from the war, from the depression, about accidentally getting a double butter ration and the joy of that, that’s something that I think about a lot.
“Because my kids, like all our kids, have been so spoiled and so indulged, this is a great moment when now they are getting down to a level where I’m actually seeing some really beautiful gratitude in them, that unfortunately I had trained out of them by giving them too much.”