Hats off to all mums on Mothers Day, says Adelaide’s trailblazer Mayor
Running a city is a big job but Adelaide Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor says it was motherhood that gave her the skills she needed to tackle it.
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Hats. Whatever the metaphorical size, shape or colour, Adelaide’s trailblazing Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor has learnt to wear many of them.
It’s a priceless skill she credits to being a mum and one she relies on to help get her through a jam-packed diary of running the state’s capital city.
On the day of this Sunday Mail interview, which started sharp at 9am, Ms Verschoor was launching a wellbeing citywide dashboard, attending a First Nations reconciliation meeting and hosting a roundtable of the nation’s capital city lord mayors.
“Motherhood has taught me to focus very quickly within small windows of time so that I can go from one task to the next,” she says.
“It means I can change hats quickly and focus on the task at hand.”
Ms Verschoor was elected the City of Adelaide’s third female Lord Mayor in 2018.
She is the first person to have held the positions of Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor, councillor and general manager within the City of Adelaide.
Ms Verschoor was in her first shopping centre management role when she became a mum for the first time to Alexandra. She was 27 at the time.
Two weeks after her daughter’s birth, she started her own marketing and print production business.
“I had 13 shopping centres in a year … and I had both children (Alexandra and Thomas) while we had the company,” she says.
“The deadlines meant I worked after dinner, bath, bedtime, until one in the morning. It was full on.”
Her daughter, Alexandra Meakin, is now 34, son Thomas is 30 and youngest, Ella, 21.
While Ms Verschoor’s children may all be young adults now, there was a time when she was crafting playdough with Ella while helping Thomas negotiate a high-school algebra equation before proofreading a university paper with Alexandra.
Asked whether the balance between motherhood and career progression gets easier with time, she says: “Oh god no! … You are always a mum and your kids always need you.”
So what’s her wish for Mother’s Day?
“Stay in bed with a book and someone bring me a cup of tea, maybe a walk and the kids coming to dinner and I don’t have to cook.”
Little Izabelle, home in time for celebration
By Rebecca Baker
For Adelaide mother of five Eleni Carlyon, this Mother’s Day is shaping up as picture perfect.
She’ll get to be home with her family, including precious Izabelle Rose who arrived seven weeks early, discharged from hospital just in time for the national celebration of mums.
Given the family has been separated for the past month, Mrs Carlyon plans to spend the special day in the simplest of ways – wrapped in the love of husband Jeromy and stepsons Jesse, 13, Jayden, 11, and sons Conner, 6, and Christian, 4.
“I was over the moon when I was told I could have Izabelle home for Mother’s Day,” she said.
“The past few weeks have been a struggle with her in hospital and the boys at home.
“We are going to just spend the day at home together and I’m hoping my husband will prepare us a home-cooked meal … spaghetti bolognaise, as that’s all he can cook.”
Izabelle was born at the Flinders Medical Centre (FMC) on April 15 weighing 1.56kg, a week after Ms Carlyon, 35, was admitted when an ultrasound raised some concerns.
“They were worried she wasn’t moving as she should have been and a week later she was born – it was all a bit of a shock,” she said.
“But she is our little miracle. I wasn’t planning on having any more children and then to have a little girl and now to be able to take her home, it is just wonderful – I am so excited.”
Izabelle was one of 1293 babies born at the FMC during the first four months of the year – up on last year’s 1048 in the same period – spending the first few weeks of her life in the neonatal unit.
Unit interim head Scott Morris said challenges for a 33 week pre-term baby included fragility, immature lungs, risk of infection, the need to be tube-fed due to an inability to suck, and to be kept in incubators to help with body temperature.
“These challenges, and others, are exacerbated when a baby is born even earlier, with pre-term babies as early as 23 weeks gestation being cared for at FMC,” Dr Morris said.
Meanwhile, their mums faced fears and uncertainties for the health and wellbeing of their baby, long periods of separation and the challenges of maintaining their breast milk supply through pumping and expressing milk, he said.
“We are very humbled to have had the privilege to help them (every baby and family) through a difficult time in their lives,” Dr Morris said.
Cricket twins couldn’t do it without their biggest fan
For two of the state’s hottest young cricketing prospects, Corey and Thomas Kelly, there’s one face that always stands out in the crowd – mum Tina.
The identical twins, 20, who were offered contracts with South Australia’s Redbacks within moments of each other last year, say she is their biggest fan.
“Mum has been unreal. Obviously in cricket you have lean runs in form and she is always our No. 1 supporter,” Thomas said.
“She doesn’t put pressure on us. Every time we walk out the door to go and play, she just says ‘Good luck, go well boys – don’t do anything stupid’. We are very lucky to have her.”
“Mum is always there, always makes you laugh,” Corey added.
But you won’t find this proud mum, who estimates she’s washed about 1700 loads of cricket whites, taking centre stage or cheering wildly. She prefers to find a quiet spot to sit and watch her boys, most often with daughter Lucy, 16.
Mrs Kelly is intensely protective of her boys, who are also talented young footballers – their dad is Matthew Kelly, an inaugural Adelaide Crows player. She is only too aware of the pressures of playing elite level sport.
When Thomas got offered his contact, she desperately hoped Corey would, too.
“As a mum, it is hard because you want both to do well. Saying that, the boys are supportive of each other and there is no jealousy … and they both play different roles in the team as well,” she said.
Corey is a pace bowler/all-rounder and Thomas is a top/middle-order batsman.
Mrs Kelly probably shouldn’t have worried, given, as she says, ever since Corey arrived in the world two minutes before his brother, what one has done, so, too, has the other.
“When one learnt to walk, the other did it a couple of minutes later; it’s just how it works,” Mrs Kelly said.
While there might be twice as much to celebrate when a match goes well, there are also twice the sideline nerves – the twins also play at Sturt.
Their sporting success is one thing, but how they conduct themselves off-field is most important to Mrs Kelly.
“They haven’t changed, that’s probably what I’m proud of. They have stayed who they are,” she said. “Yes, they can be bits of ratbags but they are just nice down-to-earth boys and I love them dearly.”
Pretty Penny shines bright
By Lisa Woolford
While most mums long for a sleep-in, Seven weekend weather presenter Gertie Spurling can’t wait to spring out of bed early to soak up every minute with her little family on her first Mother’s Day.
There’ll be a beachside coffee to beat the brekkie rush, a walk with husband Bill and daughter Penny and a quick catch-up with her mum and siblings before she heads into the studio.
The 29-year-old is one of nine children and pays tribute to her mum, Kate.
“My Mum is pretty special,” Spurling says. “Having nine kids, she’s always been so selfless with her time. And now she drives up from Port Pirie to look after Penny for us (two days) every week.”
Spurling laughs as she admits that despite being the second eldest of the clan, she really wasn’t that helpful growing up. She likened herself to Hilary Duff’s character in the 2003 film Cheaper by the Dozen who was mortified by her big family.
“I was so embarrassed,” Spurling shares. “Mum likes to tell the story where she asked me to take the clothes off the line and I said ‘I’ll take my own clothes off’. So I wasn’t that helpful but I definitely picked up a few tips along the way.”
Things such as a strict bedtime routine for Penny, who will turn one at the end of the month. But, more importantly, to just enjoy being a mother.
“Mum tells me you just go with it and you make it work,” Spurling says.
“Just enjoy it and laugh about everything. I had her with me that first week after I had Penny and while it was such a whirlwind time and there were tears, there was still a lot of laughter and a lot of fun.”
Spurling returned a few months early from maternity leave to our screens to join the new weekend team of Roseanna Mangiarelli and Mike Smithson and she’s been loving her new role.
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