Leave Candice Alone!

I, like pretty much every mother ever, quickly discovered after giving birth that other mothers are shit. You will be criticised by them for every single thing you do as a parent. Mothers love to tear other mothers down. Women in general love to tear other women down. I think it is just the way we are. Total molls.

I’ve previously written a blog Muminator: Judgement Day which outlines just a few of the things myself and my mummy friends had been judged for and we only had newborns! Sadly this trend has continued as Oakland and I have ventured into toddler-dom, which has brought about fun, new things that I can be judged for. Now I am judged for breastfeeding a 20 month old, the clothes he wears, the activities I take him to and of course, the food I feed him.

You know what? I love nuggets and chips. My favourite food group is cheese. Mix cheese with my second favourite, chips, and holy hell, cheese fries. Actually, we are taking Oakland to Lonestar tonight to commit carbocide. I don’t give a shit. Some days I have the time and energy to cook a meal full of vegetables and all that stuff, most days Oakland lives off fruit but I am human, I feed my kid shit too. If I am having a lazy day, like yesterday, I will pop fish fingers and chips in the oven for his lunch, then just scramble some eggs and mix in frozen veggies for his dinner. This doesn’t make me a shit mum, it makes me a real mum. If you are sitting there tsking me right now and saying to yourself “oh, I would never do that”, well you are either a god or you are lying, but that is ok because that is your journey. If you are a god, please message me and tell me your time management secrets because I am dying to know. Right now I am fighting with Oakland to get him down for a nap. He gets out of bed screaming, I go put him back, pat him then walk out to write maybe two lines on this then we play the game again. He isn’t sleeping through the night right now and I am limiting caffeine, so I literally cbf to play Holly Homemaker. Plus we just survived the Great Flood of 2017. We weren’t actually impacted, but still, it’s a valid excuse.

Through all this mumma hating and judging there is one person who is advocating for us all, encouraging us to empower and support one other and accept and love ourselves for our successes and our shortcomings. So I, like tens if not hundreds of thousands of mothers were left absolutely stunned last week when we all tuned in eagerly to watch Our Fair Queen on The Morning Show, expecting her to slay at life as always with her quick wit and realness. We all sat there uncomfortably but unable to look away as the absolute train wreck of an interview unfolded before our eyes. From the second Kelly, sorry Kylie, fucked up her name and called her Candice and was then called out, Constance was doomed. Kylie looked saltier than the Dead Sea when she was corrected. It was awkward as fuck, embarrassing (for the hosts, not Con) and just super unprofessional. Why invite someone on your show if you just intend to blind side them and annihilate them? Not cool at all. I really hope that brief moment didn’t bring Con down though, she totally took it like a champ. Her little smirk at the end when Larry told her to have a good weekend and she replied “you too Larry” was gold.

I just hope that Con’s message was received loud and clear. We do hold expectations of mothers way too high. We can’t all be perfect all the time, and that is ok. You can have flabby bits, relationship dramas, a messy house, a fatty dinner, wipe the stain off your kid’s shirt and they can wear it tomorrow. It’s not the end of the world. Hey Con, didn’t your book have over 150,000 pre-orders before it was even released? Yeah, she’s clearly doing it all wrong.