Moments

Moments

By Dina Saoudi

"My special memories as the Co-Founder of an investment and consulting agency and social enterprise that works with governments around the world"

1) The moment I took the little ones to the office. At the time my boys were 3 and 1. They sat in the office chairs and rotated and played with the phones. Why was that moment so important? I was a stay-at-home mom for years and I wasn’t sure if the day would ever come when I would go back to work. I have all the respect in the world for moms who choose not to enter the workforce and only focus on their children. However, I lost myself and my self-esteem somewhere between diaper change number 3729 and load of laundry number 3528. I didn’t need an office to pursue my dreams, but the office was tangible evidence that I wasn’t only dreaming. My boys saw another side of their mother. Yes, she sings, dances, and cooks their favorite meals but also has a whiteboard that’s used for their drawings and the strategies she silently thought about while changing all those diapers and doing all those loads of laundry.

2) The moment the school called me and said: “Your son was in an accident. You need to come to school immediately.” What the school didn’t know was that I was in one of the most important meetings of my life when I received that call. I had… I won’t mention who was at the office. I stood up, apologized, and left. I realized then that no matter who was at the office or whose office I was in, my sons come first.

3) The moment I took my boy right after the ER to a meeting. Yes, he needed a few stitches due to a fall, but he was good, alive, and well (and with my imagination? My mind went into every worst-case scenario during the drive from the office to school). Mind you, should I have sent him to be with family? Yes, but there wasn’t time. I had to make a choice and I chose to pick up anything I could find at the supermarket and keep my little one beside me during a 3-hour-meeting. Was I being the best mom in that moment? No. But, I was the best mom I could be considering there is a price to pay when you pursue your dreams. That’s when I learned that there is no such thing as work-life balance. You make choices and with each choice, there is a price. You have to decide the price you can live with.

This is about Technology Human Balance. My background is in Social Psychology. One of the companies we’ve invested in is an Arabic chatbot and the founder joked that he wants to create an “Ask Dina” bot because it’s almost humorous how often I receive calls and how many people want or need something from me every moment. Will an “Ask Dina” bot take care of those calls/emails/messages? Will the bot eventually be even better at responding to all those people than I am? Let us go back to my moments, I wonder what if we had the technology needed to change diapers, do the laundry and the dishes. I wonder what if we had the technology that would allow us to have safer playgrounds, so our children do not fall and hurt themselves. I wonder what if we had the technology that allows us to entertain children while educating them and feeding them nutritious foods no matter where we go.

I was born and raised in Jordan, a country in the Middle East. So, while I’m wondering “what if” maybe I can dare suggest whether or not we can have the technology that will stop bombs and plant trees instead. I won’t get too political but maybe to truly tackle and discuss the issue of Technology Human Balance we must go back to the whiteboard and rearrange our priorities, reevaluate our values and ethics, and redefine the meaning of being “Human” to make whatever new technologies more humane and in service of all people, especially exhausted working moms.

Dina Saoudi

Co-Founder of Seven Circles