We’re all guilty of judging a book by it’s cover (ahem, looking at anyone/everyone who thought Celeste from Big Little Lies lived a ‘perfect’ life…).
But one Aussie mum has just learnt that not all may be what it seems when it comes to prim-and-proper-looking parents hanging at the school gate.
Yep, so much so that mother-of-four and self-dubbed “freedom fighter” Constance Hall has taken to Facebook to tell her million-plus followers about the time she approached a mum she envied at the school drop-off.
Constance has never been afraid of saying it like it is when it comes to parenting truths.
“I don’t know what it was about her; she drove a nice car, held her head high and always had a blow-dry,” the mummy blogger, who pens the reality of being a mum on her blog Like A Queen, explains.
“She spoke in a posh accent, wore nice (non-stained) clothes and barely ever spoke to me.”
“There I was, with my tits out breast feeding my babies, smelling like dried milk, matted hair, a puffy face from a morning in tears, no shoes . . . It was like she was put on this earth to amplify my insecurities.”
Frustrated and jealous, Constance approached another mother at the school gate to gossip about the woman.
“But this other mum’s advice hit me with a big reality check. ‘Talk to the woman not about her’,” Constance confesses.
Jolted by this response, Constance was intrigued to spark up a conversation with the woman she had revered and envied for so long. So one day she did – and what she learnt completely shocked her.
“I found out she is an ex-addict and holds AA meetings to help out other addicted women that want sobriety, I found out she struggles with her marriage, her kids and her health just like the rest of us,” she writes.
“I found out that she is a million things, snobby not being one of them.”
Constance now calls this woman “one of the most inspiring women I know” and also, “one of my best friends”.
Inspired by her own encounter, Constance is hoping to spread a positive message to women: “I’d like to remind mums everywhere to talk to the woman not about her”.
Preach, Constance. Preach.
For more about the ins and outs of motherhood, LISTEN as host Claire Isaac quizzes Rhian Allen, the Founder and CEO of The Healthy Mummy, on ‘How To Be a Mumpreneur’ in the first episode of our ‘How To Be…’ podcast.
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