Angela Mollard: Fictional Bridget Jones has more realistic parenting advice than found online

The new Bridget Jones movie may be fiction, but it’s a more real template of parenting than what you’ll find online, writes Angela Mollard.

Have you seen the new Bridget Jones movie?

I ask because it’s a cracker. Best one yet. And not because Bridget is now middle-aged and getting off with a toyboy.

Bridget’s love life is the least interesting element of Mad About The Boy. Sure, Leo Woodall looks good in a wet white shirt – if a man-child named Roxster is your thing – but what makes this latest movie so special is that it’s an ode to parenting.

Even more surprising is that Bridget, our hapless, wine-guzzling, “mummy” undies-wearing heroine, has not only evolved into her most relatable character to date but revealed the secret to being a good parent. Who would have thought – Bridget Jones has become the poster girl for motherhood as a woman simply doing her best.

In a week when News Corp’s Great Australian Parent Survey has revealed that parents are stressed, overwhelmed, crippled by guilt and deeply concerned about school bullying, this charming comic franchise is an unlikely reminder of what truly matters.

Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) and Roxster (Leo Woodall) in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, but Bridget’s love life is the least interesting element of the movie.

Indeed, in the same week another “perfect” mummy, er, mommy, er, Duchess launches a lifestyle business which will make us all feel a bit useless and harried, Bridget’s brand of chaotic, burnt dinner parenting illustrates what our kids really need from us. In a word, playfulness.

You’ll groan and think being “playful” is another thing to add to your to-do list when you’re already stretched paying bills, lamenting having no time to yourself and trying to keep your relationship functioning.

Renee Zellweger with her children in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. It’s deeply affecting. Picture: Supplied

But what the new Bridget Jones movie invites us to consider is what our children mean to us, and what we might mean to them, if we strip back all the metrics which drive modern parenting.

When the worst thing happens – it’s not a spoiler to reveal that Bridget’s husband dies – suddenly your child’s performance, their popularity and the constant stream of self-improvement activities count for nothing. All that’s required is to love that little person.

“It’s not enough to survive, you’ve got to live,” Bridget’s dad, played by the wonderful Jim Broadbent, tells her. It’s a motto which could underpin family life, even if it means drastic change.

As our survey this weekend reveals, parents are feeling bludgeoned by expectations with two out of three saying they are plagued by guilt of not doing – or being – enough for their children. As one shockingly revealed: “Not knowing how to manage my child’s behaviours, my emotions and feeling so stressed, I want to die at times.”

I don’t know the solution. All I know is that the “compare and despair” generated by social media, coupled with a growing obsession with our children’s popularity and performance, has deeply infected parenting. The need to keep up has obliterated any sense of calm, anxiety and irritation permeates our homes, and we scramble ever faster, partly in a misguided quest to do better but also to avoid niggling thoughts that we’ve bought into a parenting ideology that’s utter nonsense.

What I do know, having raised a couple of kids, too, is that it’s far more important for them to like themselves than be popular. To do that they have to feel solid in their lives, to be with people they love and do things they enjoy.

I also learned that a pull rather than a push approach to activities works better. My eldest has awful memories of me pushing her to chess lessons but found her way to printmaking on her own. She still does it as a form of meditation. Kids will pull down what they want from life’s catalogue if given the space.

If I had my time again I’d do less and listen more. Forget Feb Fast and Dry July, I’d turn November into national “NO-vember”, a month where families do no organised activities. The extra-curricular stuff, the birthday parties and the high-stakes holidays don’t bring you closer to your kids. That happens when you genuinely engage with them.

Meghan Markle announcing her Netflix series and new brand on social media.

In this age of bullying and online cruelty, kids need to feel heard and held. Their Year 12 results will fade to nothing; sitting at the kitchen bench talking with you counts for everything.

I get the guilt, exacerbated by social media. This week Meghan Markle entered the influencer sphere with an image of her skipping through a vast garden with her daughter. We are about to be sold a TV show of how to do life better. But this, remember, is a family estranged from most of those they once loved.

There’s a similar image in Mad About The Boy. Bridget and her kids go to the park carrying balloons with special notes to send to their dad. It’s deeply affecting but, afterwards, they catch up with Bridget’s hotchpotch of lifelong friends.

It’s fiction, but it’s a more real template of parenting than what you’ll find online. Trust our faithful heroine to bring it home.

ANGELA LOVES

Grape Expectations

A friend put me on to Wine Works Well, a company which helps you customise a wine label for a loved one. I organised a bottle of Champagne for my mum’s 80th last week and she loved the bottle with her photo on it, declaring her “aged to perfection”.

Jumped Up

With the weather cooling, I’m loving the jumper tied around the neck look – even if Hugh Grant’s character Daniel Cleaver makes fun of it in Mad About The Boy. It’s an easy hack to make your outfit look on trend. And it’s free.

Originally published as Angela Mollard: Fictional Bridget Jones has more realistic parenting advice than found online