Still staring into the bathroom mirror, she muttered to herself, ‘Maybe I’ll ask the people.’
In the bedroom, she rummaged around in the unmade sheets to find her phone under the pillow. She snapped a selfie and tapped out a caption.
Too wrinkly for TV? Any ideas for a botox substitute that doesnt fill my frontal lobes with poison?????
She added a skull and crossbones emoji for good measure, hit Post and threw her phone back on the bed, then started to dig through the piles on the floor for something to wear. She knew that when she picked up her phone again in a few minutes, there would already be a stream of validation.
No KWEEN, your PERFECT. #keepitreal
There isn’t a wrinkle on your wise head, honey. For reals.
Laughter lines are LIFE, sister. Never become one of those blank Instagram bitches. You’re so much better than that.
YOU DO YOU, darling.
And, of course:
Neck yourself now and save the money, you Dangerous Cunt.
Abi liked to think of all this as her Greek chorus of support and affirmation and shit-kicking awfulness. It was hard to imagine life without it.
An Evening Affair wanted her opinion on the Melbourne woman who’d been thrown out of a cafe for breastfeeding her four-year-old daughter. The woman in question had gone to ground, but a helpful bystander had captured the whole thing: the child standing beside her mother and suckling, the cafe manager charging over, hands waving, the woman tearily gathering her kid and her bags and practically sprinting out of the place. Now that matter was all over the internet and the breakfast shows, face pixelated, being called a ‘pervert’ and a ‘sicko’ and an ‘incestuous bitch’.
Abi was more than happy to pull on her armour and go to war with the Parenting Police for a like-minded sister. The AEA producer had known exactly what he was going to get—that was why he’d called her, why he always called her for stories like this. ‘Just be you, Abi. Tell us why we’re wrong.’
Even before doing the interview, Abi knew that the very next shot after her soundbite—‘It’s not that poor woman who’s sick, it’s the society that thinks there’s something sexual about a mother feeding her child. If that’s what you see here, ask yourself what’s wrong with you? Are YOU the real pervert?’—would be of a reasonable-looking paediatrician in a frock making a point about there being no need to breastfeed your children past one, or even at all.
But Abi didn’t give a fuck.
In the past two years, she’d realised that the only way to get anyone to listen to you was to keep it simple and shout the loudest. Clouding your argument with nuance was the road to oblivion, in Abi’s book, and she was very clear on what she stood for.
Ironically, it was her treacherous suit of an ex-husband who had taught her all about brands. And now she was one.
Suck on that, Adrian, she thought, as she yanked a blue top that she knew worked for the cameras from the pile on the floor, sniffed it and pulled it on. All she needed now was one of her signature chunky bead necklaces and a dab of matte red lipstick, and she’d be ready to battle with the tabloid masses.
Reinvention was the only thing she had in common with Adrian’s replacement wife.
‘Hardly the only thing,’ she could almost hear Grace correct her.
Okay, okay. Some children. A blog. Possibly some crossover audience. A few secrets.
Abi laughed, as she always did when she let herself think about what was going on in that sterile modern box in the city. Whenever Arden and Alex came home from the (very) rare weekends at Dad’s, she pumped them for information. But really, she didn’t need to. She followed Elle’s posts with interest—from a fake account, obviously. She’d seen the new kitchen. She’d clocked the new boobs. She knew replacement wife wasn’t worried about the poison in botox.
But Abi hadn’t seen—and loved to imagine—Elle’s face when her tween and teen turned up with their unbrushed hair and their henna tatts and their steampunk-meets-the-littlest-hobo outfits, stomping their big boots on her white fluffy rugs and smearing their sticky fingers across her all-glass everything.
Speaking of which, Abi could hear the monsters downstairs, still fighting despite Grace’s insistence that it was time to calm down and think about what lessons they wanted to learn today. She really ought to weigh in.
But first, a quick post for the people. Back to the phone and some furious finger-typing.
TODAY’S WAR CRY:
Today, my Green Divas, I am calling to arms and heading into battle with the culture, yet again.
Today, I continue to fight to keep us out of that subservient place where THEY want us—doing everything by the new rule-book that none of us helped write.
Whatever shape your day takes today, remember this: There’s a reason you’re not one of the sheep. There’s a reason you’re reading this blog right now.
There’s a reason the goddess gave you your own mind.
When the world is telling you your child doesn’t fit in and you need to fix him, tell them where to go.
When they’re trying to sell you all that processed food that kills you slowly, tell them you nourish yourself and your family with authenticity and you wouldn’t spread that crap on your garden.
When they’re telling you that you love too hard and too loud, tell them one day they might realise their little lives are just a pale imitation of yours.
You are POWERFUL, never forget it. Your choices are powerful. Parent fiercely. Love loudly. Hit life with all the gusto you can summon from the earth.
Today’s a big day. Live large.
PS: You can see me on An Evening Affair, 6.30 tonight, Channel 8. xx
Oh, and:
A quick message to my GD Becca, who messaged me to say her kid’s teacher had been complaining about her boy’s beautiful hair: Remember, cutting and combing against his will does not make you a ‘good mother’, it makes you a violator of his personal space and free will. Tell that teacher to do their job and stop imposing their bullshit rules on a little person who’s more than capable of setting their own compass. We’re with you. #divapower #fighttheman
A yell from downstairs yanked Abi off the bed. She guessed it was up to her to take Otto into town today. She’d make it back in time for the film crew.
CHAPTER THREE
LEISEL
The Working Mum
If one more of Leisel’s colleagues told her how exhausted they were, she might just pull their hair.
In the lift this morning, she’d been sandwiched between two millennials in sunglasses, complaining over their takeaway coffee cups. The young women were tired because they’d worked back the night before, then gone drinking at that ironic new ’80s pop-up bar. It was exhausting, eating ironic $22 Jatz and French onion dip and sipping ironic tequila sunrises until midnight, and then getting up at seven to make it to Barre Body before you could collapse into your chair and consume your first oversized cold-drip.
Leisel was tired because she was forty-three and had a baby, a toddler and a child in kindergarten. She was also the managing editor of a group of women’s magazines. Once upon a time, she had been managing editor of one women’s magazine—a feisty feminist glossy called HER—but in the new media world order, she was now responsible for five ever-sunnier titles.
Most mornings, like this one, when she was smiling along to Snapchat stories in the office kitchen, the only thing staving off exhausted sobs was the prospect of the kettle boiling and delivering her a caffeinated beverage that she could drink all the way to the bottom.
Last night, she’d made it home just in time to kiss The Toddler—Rich—and feed The Baby—Harriet—before their bedtime. Then she’d done home readers with The Kindy Kid—Maggie.
Then came an hour of what she labelled The Returns: walking small children back to their beds, over and over, until they stuck. She did a solid session of ‘shush and pat’ with The Baby, and finally, finally, she was able to back out of the big bedroom the kids
all shared, picking up bottles and onesies and teeny-tiny plastic toys as she went.
It was 8.30 p.m. She took off her shoes and her work clothes and turned to her husband, Mark—who, after a solid day of kid duty, had handed over to her as soon as she got home. While she’d been doing the bedtime dance, he’d been sitting on the lounge, watching the news, putting in a cameo only when Baby Harri demanded it. It occurred to Leisel as she got into her pyjamas, her work make-up only a smeared memory, that she and Mark hadn’t looked at each other once since she’d got home.
There he was. Crumpled, tired around the eyes, wearing his decidedly non-office uniform: a faded White Stripes T-shirt, baggy dark shorts, bare feet. He hadn’t shaved in three days. This is what a stay-at-home dad looks like in 2017, she thought. Like an ageing rocker with nowhere to be.
She asked Mark about his day. His eyes still on the screen, he told her about Harri’s tooth and what the teacher had said at pick-up. He told her that a local furniture-maker had offered him a couple of jobs for the coming week, so they should ask Wendy from next door to pick the kids up one afternoon, she’d generally do it on her day off…
Leisel’s internal to-do list began to spool. She had to keep reminding herself to listen to her husband.
‘Your sister called me,’ Mark was saying. ‘She said you’re not answering your phone. She’s coming to Sydney with Abi soon. Wants to see you. That won’t be awkward at all.’
Shit, that was right. Leisel’s little sister was her favourite person, but ever since Leisel’s blog had broken fifty thousand followers, things had been complicated. Abi seemed to consider her sister-in-law competition, rarely missing an opportunity to take a dig at blogs like Leisel’s, whose fans she labelled ‘Corporate Slaves’.
‘I’ll call Grace tomorrow,’ Leisel told Mark. When Abi isn’t home, she added in her head.
Apparently she and Mark were talked out. Dinner was a wordless affair in front of a recorded Australian Story. Then Leisel took care of a tedious line-up of household must-dos and work emails before bed, where Mark read for his obligatory, pre-sleep five minutes and she opened her laptop, clicked her blog’s Facebook page and wrote:
I think The Baby likes Wonder Dad better than me. In fact, I know it. When I came in tonight she was almost down. I went to give her a bed-time bottle and she squirmed out of my arms, reaching for him.
Part of me was hurt, but part of me was relieved. WD had to take over and, you know what? I was just happy to let go of a job, to scratch one thing off The List. After all, I still had to read to The Toddler and try to squeeze in homework with The Kindy Kid.
Am I the worst mother in the world for quietly loving the fact that TB only likes WD to give her the bed-time bottle??? Anyone else?
Then Leisel rolled over to sleep next to a gently snoring Mark, knowing that if she was lucky, she probably had two hours ahead of her.
As she slept, the responses rolled in from night-moving mothers all over the country.
Oh, darling, you’re putting on a brave face. Of course The Baby loves his mummy. Chin up! #mumknowsbest
I love it when the kids ask for their Daddy in the night! Not an ounce of mum guilt here. #freedom
I wish my two would even ask for their dad. He’s hardly ever here, he’d have to be reminded of their names! #allmen
Harriet woke at midnight, as she always did, and Leisel remembered the promise she and Mark made themselves every night: Harri would NOT be getting a midnight bottle. Of course, by 12.12 Leisel was at the microwave, pushing buttons, warming the formula.
The beeping woke Rich, as it always did, and he whined his way out of the kids’ room and into sleeping next to Daddy in ‘the big bed’. Leisel lay on the floor beside Harri’s cot, patting her through the bars as she finished her bottle and finally went back to sleep.
A shiver of cold and a sharp pain in Leisel’s shoulder woke her up. She was on the floor next to Harri’s cot, again. She went to the marital bedroom only to find both Rich and Maggie snoring next to Mark. Back in the kids’ room, she tried to squeeze her considerable self into the bottom of their IKEA bunk. Every night, every time, she cursed her and Mark’s misguided decision not to buy the king single beds that all her friends had bought for their kids. What an indulgence, she’d thought at the time, not knowing that it would be her feet dangling off the end of those cheap bunk beds.
Then she was up again at 4 a.m. when Harriet pulled herself to her feet in her cot and screamed her little red head off. Remembering the last passive-aggressive note from their neighbours, Leisel headed back to the microwave for another bottle. She turned around to find Rich staring at her: ‘I want to sleep with you, Mummy.’ It was such a rare request that Leisel couldn’t refuse, returning to the kids’ room with the toddler under one arm and the bottle in the other. She settled Harri, lay next to her son and willed herself another hour’s rest.
But Rich wanted to talk. Guilt prevented her from shutting down his commentary on what had happened at preschool because, hell, it wasn’t like she’d been around to see or hear any of it.
‘That’s lovely, Richie, go to sleep darling,’ she whispered as a list of grievances against every other kid in the centre was recounted.
‘And then Sookie pushed me over, and Savannah stole my Lego, and then Little Archie called me a bad name, and DO YOU KNOW WHAT MISS EMMA DID?’
‘No, Rich, but could you go back to sleep now? You’ll be tired, darling.’
‘Nothing. She did nothing, Mummy. My heart was broken.’
Leisel’s was too, by that point.
Then she heard the bleat of her iPhone alarm and tipped herself out of the narrow bed in a commando roll, sprinting down the hall to get to it before it woke Maggie and Mark. Too late. Now everyone was up but Harri, who was, miraculously, asleep again. Mark was filthy at being disturbed so early, and it was clear that Leisel’s planned hour of pre-breakfast writing had just been scrubbed from the schedule.
Instead, Leisel defused three fights before she left the house for work—including one between herself and Mark—and wiped three shitty bottoms, packed two lunches and made five breakfasts (everyone wanted something different, obviously).
As she walked out the door with Maggie and Rich and their assortment of unfeasibly heavy bags, Mark—with Harri on his hip—asked, ‘What time will you be home? Not late, right? I’ve got a Meeting tonight.’ And Leisel felt that familiar twist of acid in her stomach: she would have to find a way to tell Zac—her 27-year-old boss—that she couldn’t stay for deadline. Again.
‘Of course not, babe. I’ll see you later.’ She bumped the door closed with her bum.
• • •
After Leisel managed not to cry in front of the millennials in the office kitchen, she took her hot tea back to her desk. Before she got to her 128 unread emails, she tapped out a status update.
Not for the first time, guys, I find myself asking: How did I get here? Tell me, how did you get there? Doing everything. For everyone. All. The. Time. Failing. Stressed. Exhausted. Is this just ‘one of those days’? or is every day just one of those days????? full blog post tonight. Chins up ladies.
And then turned to TweetDeck:
Full blog post coming tonight, WMs, if you can send me enough energy to get that far. Firing last of mine your way #runningonempty
That should tide them over, she thought. Leisel’s intensely loyal army of followers were as exhausted as she was. She thought of them—and the flood of correspondence proved her right—as slumped over their phones at night, clutching their glasses of wine like lifelines, taking a break from the work-mails and the washing mountain to find a little solace in a life every bit as chaotic as their own.
Until a couple of her blog posts had gone viral, Leisel had had no idea there were quite so many frazzled women in need of a place to vent every night. None of them knew exactly how they had got there, but in Leisel (aka The Working Mum) they found someone whose life experiences mirrored their own: after a million
seemingly insignificant decisions, they had become parents at just the moment when their bodies wanted to lie down, but they still needed to lean in.
Leisel clicked on her untackled inbox. At the top was an email from her boss.
Leisel—I need to talk to you just as soon as you have a moment. Zac xxxx
That ‘xxxx’ seemed like one big F-you. Whatever he wanted to see her about, it wouldn’t end in understanding hugs and air kisses.
She steeled herself, stood up and walked to Zac’s nook—he didn’t have an office, no one had an office. ‘You wanted to see me?’
‘Leisel.’ Zac pushed his chair back, looking into her face but not quite meeting her eyes. He wore an almost-black T-shirt that was faded and lightly frayed at the neck, skinny white jeans and hi-tops that Leisel knew cost $350—they’d been in the men’s pages of the latest BUY THIS, one of her titles. He was so young and so white, almost transparent. Leisel suppressed an urge to ask him if he ever went outside, the way that young people should. She looked at the four types of screens he had within a finger’s reach and thought better of it.
‘Zac. How’s things?’
‘Things are alright, you know. Alright.’ He always struggled to make eye contact. Was it because he was always on the brink of delivering bad news, or was he just one of those young people she’d read about who found face-to-face interaction impossible? ‘This is awkward, Leisel, but it’s about your hours.’
‘My hours?’ Here we go, she thought.
‘You know how much we value you around here. Your experience, your commitment.’
Uh-huh.
‘But it’s been brought to my attention that some of the other, um, other staff feel that you are not pulling your weight as part of the team.’ Zac lifted his giant plastic smoothie cup and took a long sip from the straw. He looks like my preschooler, thought Leisel. This conversation must be causing him so much pain—confrontation is, like, the worst.
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