BUFFALO, N.Y. — Life for women in 2020 and 2021 has become a lot more like being a professional juggler.
"I feel like most women have been so silent unless you're talking with people you know and can relate to about everything that we're juggling, everything that we have on our plate at the moment," said Jeanine Roberts.
Between her husband's barber shop, Cove and Mill Barbering Co., getting shutdown during the pandemic, having to work strictly from home and also trying to help her kids with remote learning, Roberts knows how tough it can be. It's what inspired her to fill out a survey for "Today."
"I was just venting and I was expressing everything I had been balancing. I had no intention of where it would go," Roberts said.
Sharing those raw emotions made a "Today" producer ask her to come on the show. She joined a panel of women from around the country over Zoom on International Women's Day to share how women are essential.
It also made them realize just how many women were letting their mental health fall to the wayside during the pandemic.
"We need to give ourselves room to identify, you know what — if you're not feeling yourself, check in with someone,'" Roberts said.
To do just that, those women plan to meet once a month over Zoom.
Roberts says she'd also like to start one with just Western New York women.
"It's not just a conversation to have on Women's History Month or International Women's Day. I feel like it's something that is needed everyday," Roberts said.
If you'd like to help Roberts get a Zoom call started for local women, you can email her at womenRessential@outlook.com.