Erin Molan on juggling multiple jobs and being a mum

Lots of women have to work, some are the sole financial contributor in their family, and while in a perfect world we’d love to stay home and dedicate every waking second of our lives to our children, it’s just not possible, writes Erin Molan.

Recently I took my four-year-old daughter Eliza out for dinner. As a very rare treat. Our meals are generally delivered on a bike, because cooking is not my forte.

We were looked after brilliantly by a man in his mid-forties. Eliza asked him if he had any children. He told her he had two, aged 12 and eight.

Eliza then asked who was looking after them. She was genuinely confused. He told her they were at home with mum.

An innocuous exchange, but it stayed with me long after we’d gone home. Why? Possibly because it was the first time I’d heard anyone ask a man who was looking after his kids.

I, on the other hand, had already been asked that day. It was by a chatty cabbie who wanted to talk footy, and whether Gus is the same off camera as on (yes by the way!), on the way home from my 2Day FM breakfast radio shift.

Radio and TV personality Erin Molan would do anything for her daughter. Picture: Toby Zerna

And then he commented on how busy I must be, and that it must be hard because I’d barely get to see my child. This statement stung. While the thought that someone believed I’d rarely see my child was borderline offensive, if not completely insulting, there was absolutely no hint of malice in the exchange at all.

I spent the next half-hour defending myself to my congenial interrogator with an impressive litany of justifications.

I work as a single mum to support my child. I mostly work when she sleeps. I get home to her most mornings, and am still essentially a full-time mum as well as doing radio, Sky News, this column, my baby range and the other elements comprising my professional pursuits.

I added that I don’t see friends, do anything social, play sport or go to the gym because I choose my daughter over anything else.

Basically I exhausted myself and probably him with attempts to convince him that I was a good mother and that I could be busy, work hard and still love and care for my child as well as anyone else.

I left it at that in the cab, but naturally I contemplate from time to time if other areas of my life are neglected. The answer is of course yes. Is this the right way to do it? I don’t know. It’s just my way.

But I can tell you something I do know, and that’s the fact it’s no one’s business but mine.

This week, again, I found myself in an identical situation. Flying to Canberra for my Sky show (‘Erin’, 5pm Fridays), at the airport I was asked for a photo by a friendly fan.

She said how incredible it was that I could leave my daughter overnight for work. That she could “never do that” to her kids. Again, no malice. She’d actually attempted a compliment.

It had the complete opposite effect. I began to explain that my daughter has a father who also loves her and she was staying at his place … but I stopped myself. I’ve been justifying my life to perfect strangers since before my daughter was born, but I’m done now. Enough.

Erin Molan knows what it is to feel mother’s guilt.

I discussed this in Canberra, asking the audience for their experiences and questioning the discomfort I felt with such conversations still occurring in 2023. Was I just an exhausted single mum who feels guilty 99 per cent of the time anyway, so did it really matter?

Not one man present had ever been asked who was looking after his kids, nor whether their work took them away from home too much. Not one. Every single woman, however, rolled their eyes and recounted multiple occasions when they had been probed by both men and women.

One, a mum of three young children, had wanted to nominate for federal politics but had been so badly bullied that she’d withdrawn – bombarded with judgmental observations on leaving the children for sittings and the risk she would buckle under pressure.

We’ve seen so many movements that purport to support women and advance our cause. Some have been downright dangerous and have done the opposite.

Some have been designed solely to attack men, and there’s nothing to be gained for anyone, especially women, in that. Most men are incredible supporters of women, and mums.

There’s some simple things we can all do that might make a tiny difference, with Mother’s Day looming this weekend.

Let’s realise that in this day and age everyone is doing their bloody best.

That lots of women have to work, some are the sole financial contributors in their families, and that while in a perfect world some of us would love to stay home and dedicate every waking second of our lives to our children, it’s just not possible.

And I bet some of those who do exactly that would kill to have a ‘break’ every now and then and go to ‘work’!

Mothers feel guilty most of the time anyway, what we don’t need is one iota of encouragement or assistance to do it more.