Sarah Landry The Birds Papaya

It all began with a blog she coded herself on her then-broken laptop, called “The Bird’s Papaya,” named after her eldest daughters' nicknames, Gemma Bertie and Maya Papaya.

“I did it myself, and it was atrocious writing and horrible content,” she recalls of the initial dive into blogging. But she soldiered on, learning as she went, improving along the way.

Landry has since grown a prominent digital empire, with well over two million followers on her combined social media platforms. But Landry is more than just a digital creator, body confidence advocate, podcast host and entrepreneur. She is also a wife, and a mom to four children.

That “new” factor should not take away from the fact that it is indeed a career. Make no mistake - full time content creators work hard, and Landry is a prime example of that. “Thank you for first calling it a career, because it is a big job, and I'm so grateful for it. This career kind of blossomed from my life, from being myself, and from the experiences I was having through being a woman and being a mother,” she says.

When Landry first started The Bird’s Papaya, she was 23-years old with two young children. She was a stay-at-home mom living far away from her family and support system, and felt isolated. “I remember finding a blog, and reading people's stories, and the ins and outs of their days, and I felt so inspired. I wasn't alone in this experience,” she recalls. Feeling inspired by her peers and the love of human connection, Landry felt that she wanted to join the conversation. She then turned to Google to learn how to code, and thus The Bird’s Papaya was born.

In the beginning, the content and quality of the blog were not where Sarah envisioned it. Her passion and love for the community that she was creating drove her to charge forward, and to this day is still her driving force. “I realized even though blogs became social media apps, and we keep growing, it comes down to connection, community, and the fact that sometimes we don't find support in our neighborhoods and in our relational world. Sometimes we need people a world away from us to get what we're talking about, and to share experiences with us and people online. As silly as people may make it seem, it has probably saved my life,” she says.