Sharmadean Reid Is Fighting For A Workplace That Actually Works For Mums
This story is part of Black Ballad’s takeover of HuffPost UK, a week-long series by Black women on parenting, family, and our post-Covid future.
Sitting in her car, with her nine-year-old son Roman in the passenger seat, Sharmadean Reid is refreshingly honest about parenting during a pandemic.
“I had a massive breakdown in the beginning, because Roman was going to private school. It had lockdown a week before all of the other schools, because posh people like to travel and there were two cases in the school, even before they announced that schools needed to close,” says the beauty entrepreneur.
“I am a Black mum who wants her child to do well and be amazing and I was freaking out that he wasn’t learning anything.”
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Many parents felt the same pangs of panic when the government announced school closures in March. Yet, like other families dealing with homeschooling, Reid made the best of a situation that none of us had ever experienced.
“After a couple of weeks, I had to really organise,” she says. ”One of the critical things for us was when I went to my office and got a desk for him. I got loads of stationery and re-organised his bedroom, so it was more like a workspace and then we settled down into a really nice rhythm.”
If you know anything about Sharmadean Reid, you’ll know that this 36-year-old is on a relentless mission to empower women through the beauty industry – and to provide working mums with opportunities to succeed beyond measure. This passion to ensure working mums can fulfil their career ambitions started back in 2009, when she founded her first business, WAH Nails.
Not only did Reid achieve her quest of creating the coolest nail shop in London – with stores in Dalston, east London and in Topshop’s flagship branch at Oxford Circus – WAH Nails also built pop-up nail...
