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The pandemic has been a time of stress and upheaval for most families, but some have found a way to transform that chaos into a fresh start. While many of the changes parents have been making are temporary, like working from home and scheduling online playdates, living in lockdown is driving some parents to embrace lasting changes. All this time to reflect has led some to realize that maybe they don’t want the life they thought they wanted. Others are realizing that life is, well, unpredictable, and perhaps it’s best to pursue that dream now rather than wait for the perfect moment to present itself.
We look at three families who have made big changes in their lives—moving across the country, fast-tracking their own business and taking the leap to home-schooling. And while they’d certainly wish it didn’t take a global pandemic to set these plans in motion, they don’t plan on going back to their before-times lives when this is over.
Photo of a couple sitting in their living room
Photo: Carmen Cheung
The Entrepreneurs
Amina Gilani and Thusenth Dhavaloganathan
Zain, 6, Zara, 4, and Aziz, 2
On March 11, 2020, Amina Gilani received her final paycheque for her job at a financial services company. Her husband, Thusenth Dhavaloganathan, had wrapped up his last program-management contract. The couple had been quietly working on their start-up in their free time in the hopes of quitting their day jobs and turning their new venture in a full-time job for both of them. They were in Chicago attending an accelerator program for start-ups.
The next day, the NBA season was cancelled because of the pandemic. “That’s when it really hit,” says Gilani. They decided to immediately drive home to Guelph, Ont., along with their three kids, aged two to six, and Dhavaloganathan’s mom, who had come along to babysit. The excitement they’d been feeling about their small business slowly turned to dread. Now they’d have to depend solely on their own business for income, in a pandemic, with three young kids at home. “When I planned on quitting my corporate job, I was relying on having school and child care,” says Gilani.
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