Christine Collinge is the founder of Super Coffee & Food, providing speciality coffee in the El Parc i la Llacuna del Poblenou region of Barcelona city.
The cafe sources local ingredients as much as possible, while choosing quality single-origin coffee beans with low environmental impact. Customers can also purchase healthy food bowls, desserts and drinks online for home delivery.
We chatted to Christiane about how her business was hit by Covid-19, the pressure women are under when balancing working from home with their children’s needs and why working mums need to be more vocal.
[4:00] MumAbroad: I’d like to talk about your role as a working mum during this period of Covid. In July 2020 you wrote an article No. All-Remote Work is not a Mother’s Dream Come True. I read this article and I enjoyed it very much, but I could also feel frustration and anger in your words. How has covid affected you being a working mum & why did you feel the need to write the article?
Christiane Collinge: “When our three children were born, life changed. I had a child and I couldn’t go back to work anymore, they didn’t want me. I was a freelancer, so I had to work from home with the baby, and then we realised that in Spain it was not very easy to have a child and a job. So that’s where the idea came to do our own business, and I started to work from home with the baby trying to start a business while working another job, just trying to get somewhere. When we opened the shop, I had au pairs so I could actually leave home, and so it’s an on and off story. But I always said ‘we’re in Spain and it’s different, so I can’t expect things to be easy’.
And then with covid, I noticed everyone was writing about remote work and it was always positive. I realised that all these posts were written by men and mostly CEOs or founders. One guy had said ‘I enjoy my 10-minute snack time when my child that comes home’. And I thought ‘how does the child come home?’ ‘And where does she appear from?’ ‘What is she doing?’ ‘Just a 10 minute snack in her whole day?’ Men are not as involved in the household even if they are remote working, and that’s where it all came from. I got a bit angry thinking that even remotely, men and family men still don’t participate so much in the household as they should.’ “
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