NOVA podcasters Rachel Thaiday and Katie Mattin ask: Am I a Bad Mum?

Katie Mattin and Rachel Thaiday don’t hold back in sharing the dilemmas of motherhood in their podcast ‘Am I a Bad Mum’, but they still say laughter is the best medicine

Podcasters and friends Rachel Thaiday, Katie Mattin and their children. Picture: AAP/Claudia Baxter

Each year Katie Mattin gives her twin daughters $5 each to spend at the school Mother’s Day stall.

“Last year one of them came home and said, ‘Mum, guess what? I found something for $3 and I spent the rest at tuckshop,” she laughs.

It’s stories like these that Katie and her good friend, Rachel Thaiday, share on their Nova podcast, Am I A Bad Mum?

Podcasters and friends Rachel Thaiday, Katie Mattin and their children. Picture: AAP/Claudia Baxter

It’s the question they ask themselves for things like not throwing their children birthday parties, bribing them, not reading the school newsletter, or buying baked goods from Woolies for fundraisers and disguising them as homemade.

“The main message in the podcast is that we’re not perfect,” says Katie, mum to Amelia and Holly, 10.

“I think mums need to take some time to look at what a great job they’re doing.”

Their friendship began when Katie started working with Rachel’s husband, former Broncos star Sam Thaiday, on Nova 106.9’s Saturday breakfast show Thank God It’s Thaiday three years ago.

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When Rachel arrived late at the radio station’s Christmas lunch, explaining she’d been battling to get her toddler dressed, Katie laughed out loud, and things blossomed from there.

“Katie and I got along straight away. You have that common connection of, ‘Oh my god, I’m not the only one’, and then you have that ‘aha’ moment,” Rachel says.

After Katie’s husband, Jay Walkerden – Nova’s general manager and head of podcasting – suggested she start a parenting podcast, Katie asked Rachel to join her.

Jay Walkerden and Katie Mattin with their daughters Amelia and Holly.

“We tried doing it with the background noise of being in a cafe so it was just like a normal situation where you sit with a girlfriend and pour your heart out over a coffee or wine or juice in the space of a 25-minute break of seeing each other and going, ‘Are you surviving?’,” says Rachel, mum to Gracie, 6, and Ellsie, 4.

But the public setting didn’t work as they found themselves holding back.

“Some of the things we were bringing up, we were a bit self-conscious about other people around us hearing, which is amusing because everyone hears it on the podcast,” Katie says. “You don’t want to be judged there and then,” Rachel adds.

Show titles include Judgey Judgey, Do I really look like that when I am angry?, and Kids’ lunches: how long is too long to make them in advance?

While parenting books and experts may offer practical advice on how to overcome some of the challenges of parenthood, Rachel and Katie believe sometimes laughter is the best medicine.

“You have to be lighthearted; you have to laugh about it,” Rachel says.

“We’ve done all sorts of jobs, and raising children is hard, it’s challenging, but it’s also by far the most rewarding.”

Sam and Rachel Thaiday relax at home with daughters Ellsie 3, and Gracie 5. Photo Lachie Millard

The podcast has been running for a year now and the pair finally feel they’ve found their groove while overcoming the hurdles that life has thrown at them.

Originally from the UK, Katie was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis four months after her twins were born.

She was feeding them one night when she felt a numbness in her toe that gradually went up one leg.

After her diagnosis and the family’s move to Brisbane, she went five years with no new symptoms before the numbness came back.

“I really panicked because I hadn’t had any issues for so long and you don’t really know how (much) worse it is going to get, if it will get better, or if it will just keep getting worse. And how am I going to pick up the kids from school if my legs aren’t working?” she said at the time.

After consulting a neurologist, Katie found a way to manage her multiple sclerosis through consistency with her medication, regular exercise, and keeping a positive outlook.

Earlier in the year, Rachel revealed her eight-month struggle with postnatal depression after Ellsie was born, in the hope it would help other mothers who have either been through or are going through the same thing.

Rachel Thaiday and Katie Mattin. Photo: Paul A. Broben

“It’s spoken about a little bit more now, but people don’t openly speak about their own situations. In general conversations, people go, ‘Too deep, don’t want to get into it’.

“Whether it’s your first or fourth baby, if you haven’t had postnatal depression before, it’s actually quite confronting because you don’t know what you’re going through,” Rachel says.

Having come out the other side, Rachel is now working on bringing a new style of personal training to Australia, and she’s enjoying motherhood more than ever.

“My goal was to raise two strong, independent, open-hearted girls who would take on anything and just be them.

“When we got to the first day of Grade 1 and kindy and neither of them looked at me for anything, except my three-year-old at the time giving me a peace sign and saying, ‘I got this mum’, and walking away from me, and I’m the one standing there going, ‘need me’, they’re the moments for me that I go, ‘I love it, I love what I do’.”