'I'm a mum-of-three and always late... I was told I'm disrespectful'

"I have newborn twins and a toddler. No matter what I do to prepare, those kids always throw a spanner in the works and we run late," the Queensland mum says in a viral video. 

Remember newborn days?

Maybe you’re right in the thick of them, those days where no matter what you do to get prepared, it always takes a minimum of one hour to get out of the house.

You might have packed the nappy bag the night before, laid out everyone’s clothes, if you have an older child, you prepared his lunchbox and popped it in the fridge.

It’s possible that you even had the foresight to prepare some overnight oats for yourself because a hungry mum is a ragey mum.

But then the morning comes, and disasters, like dominoes, start to fall.

The toddler takes too big of a bite of toast and vomits all over himself and you, requiring not just a quick outfit change, but a shower.

Then the newborn has a poo-splosion which means another bath, after which she starts screaming because she’ll die if you don’t feed her RIGHT NOW.

After, she spews in your bra and you mop up with a towel, no time to change again.

You get everyone in the car, only to discover someone unclipped the seatbelt on your baby’s seat.  While you're wrestling the seat back into an immoveable position, your toddler opens his lunch box, starts chowing down and then dumps the whole thing in the driveway.

Now he’s crying and so are you.

This is why parents are always late.

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Why are parents always late?

Roísín Tarrant knows this chaos all too well.

The Queensland mum has newborn twins and a toddler, and although she always looks radiant and pulled together in her videos, she’ll be the first to tell you, don’t be fooled.

Life is insanity.

So when Roísín saw a TikTok of a mum berating parents for being late, she had something to say.

“I saw a mum post a TikTok about how having kids is not an excuse to be late,” she said in an Instagram reel filmed from the car.

“And that it’s a sign that you’re really disrespectful. I just have to disagree.

“I have newborn twins and a toddler. We were meant to be at breakfast at 8:30. It’s 8:30 right now and we’re just leaving our house.”

Roísín said she was meeting her mum and sister, and that she had all the respect in the world for them, it’s just s**t happens with kids that you simply cannot foresee.

RELATED: Mum’s discipline for late child causes backlash

Roísín and Zac have twins and a toddler. Photo: Instagram

“I’ve been trying to leave the house for an hour and when you have you kids, I feel like that definitely is an excuse.

“It took my husband 20 minutes to dress our toddler because he’s a toddler, and then even if the twins aren’t due a feed, suddenly they decide they’re starving and I need to feed two babies. Then there’s poo explosions and all those things you can’t account or plan for."

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“So unless you’re leaving two hours to spare… and even then by that time the cycle of feeding an nappies has begun again.

“So I think it’s reductive to say you’d respect someone if you’re late because you had to wrangle your kids.”

RELATED: I make myself late to school runs to avoid gossip mums

Mums with young children on being late

Mums flooded the comments with words of support and stories of chronic lateness.

“Everyone is ready to walk out the door, you put baby in car seat and boom… 💩,” one person said.

RELATED: Mum’s rant about parents who are late for school

Roísín's twins feed around the clock every two hours. Photo: Instagram

“Relate to this so much as a first time mum of a three-month-old,” said another. “I can have everything organised the night before, then come the day, bub spews, decides he’s hungry… you can only try your best.”

“100%. It really doesn’t matter how organised you are, young kids can whip out a wild card and squash any attempt at being punctual,” a third person said.

Originally published as 'I'm a mum-of-three and always late... I was told I'm disrespectful'