Edwina Bartholomew reveals why The Wiggles Christmas concert is her ‘worst nightmare’

At the risk of getting kicked out of the Mum Club, Edwina Bartholomew reveals why she dislikes the much-loved music group.

I’m about to say something un-Australian, perhaps sacrilegious, a statement that might get me kicked out of the Mum Club. I hate The Wiggles.

Well, hate is probably too strong. I love Anthony and the OG team, I love the new peppy addition of Tsehay Hawkins and deeply miss Emma and her iconic yellow bow. I just don’t want to listen to them, I don’t want them on in the car and I most certainly don’t want them streaming on the TV on a Saturday morning.

The feeling is so strong that my daughter even knows it. “Mummy doesn’t like The Wiggles”, she says in her little squeaky voice as we make our viewing selections on ABC iview. Peppa Pig and Cocomelon are in the same banned basket. Only Bluey, Paddington Bear and Peter Rabbit get through the tough critics’ selection process of being as entertaining for me as they are for her.

And yet, now tickets are on sale for the Christmas concert, I’m wavering. Am I to deny her this essential rite of passage because I don’t want to join the pram parking and can’t remember the words to Hot Potato?

Australian children's performers 'The Wiggles'. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian.

My colleague at Sunrise who shall not be named but has a bald head and eight grandkids thinks I am robbing my daughter of an Aussie tradition.

He has taken all of his four kids and eight grandkids to Wiggles’ concerts every year for more than 30 years with a break in between for the disinterested teenage and 20s stage.

Despite many fond memories, Kochie (oops, you guessed it) relayed a story this week of the dense smell of hundreds of nappies at the last concert he attended at an RSL in Sydney. That. Is. My. Actual. Worst. Nightmare. Smelling my own kids’ output is bad enough but being immersed in the stench of other people’s offspring is next level parenting.

So does avoiding The Wiggles Christmas Concert crush make me a bad mum? I suspect the answer is yes. I think the time has come to suck it up, sweetheart, succumb to The Wiggles costume and dive into the moshpit with the other mums. At least Poppy Koch will be there to hold the nappy bag. BYO nose peg.

Originally published as Edwina Bartholomew reveals why The Wiggles Christmas concert is her ‘worst nightmare’