How Bridget Maasland Balances Work and Motherhood with a Young Child

In podcast column De Mediawereld Unraveled this week, a listener asks how presenters combine their work with young children. Bridget Maasland says that she traveled abroad with her young baby to record a program. “When he was five weeks old, we went to Thailand for Beauty & the Nerd. It was really very funny. My only requirement was that I had a microwave in my room, so that I could at least warm up the bottles.”

For the trip, Bridget is allowed first class flying, she says. But the other travelers are not waiting for that at first. “I came in with such a bumblebee. You saw all those people, who had paid so much money for that ticket, look like: oh, no. A baby.” But luckily Mees is a quiet baby. “When I was walking out after 12 hours of flying, someone came up to me and said, ‘Is there an on/off button on it? We didn’t hear it.'”

In the Netherlands, Bridget always tries to work as much as possible when her child is with his father. “I always kept the weekends free when he was there and not the other weekends. It always went organically. I was able to work around it.” But now her child is an adolescent, so he can take care of himself. “I make sure food is ready. And often he also waits for me and then we eat together.”

Bridget did have to cancel an interview with Ryan Reynolds for her son. “I sometimes had that I flew to Paris or London on Wednesday for an interview with Ryan Reynolds, for example, or with other great actors. But at one point he said: ‘Can’t you do that on other days? Because Wednesday afternoon is I with you, mom.’ Then I seriously canceled Ryan Reynolds. And the next Wednesday afternoon when I came to pick him up from school, he said, ‘I’m going to play with someone, bye!'”.

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