Earlier this year, a comment TV presenter Rachael Finch made about her parenting arrangements in an interview with Sunday Style got taken out of context, quickly attracting the wrath of the Internet.
“Every weekend Violet goes to Mish’s [her husband Michael Miziner] mum’s house, and we get our weekend to ourselves. I think that’s incredibly healthy for the relationship. And on Sunday, when we pick her up, we have 100 per cent energy back,” the 28 year old said.
A photo posted by Rachael Finch (@rachael_finch) on
Cue the accusatory comments and judgments labelling her a “part-time parent” for leaving Violet with her grandmother every weekend to allow her to spend time with her husband.
Despite probably sounding like a parent’s dream, it’s simply not true.
“It was definitely an exaggeration. The quote said ‘Every weekend Violet spends with her Grandmother Irene’ and then went on to talk about everything else, so Michael and I could spend nights together,” she said in the latest episode of our podcast I Don’t Know How She Does It.
Rachael Finch shares what a day in her life is really like – activated bee pollen and all. Post continues after audio.
“So the first thing that comes to my mind when I read that as an outsider is ‘I’ve been at work all week with my child in daycare, I come home on the weekend to spend my weekend with my baby girl and then she goes to her Grandmother’s house? So she doesn’t see her at all?’
“And I’m thinking ‘Wow, that does sound bad!”. That sounds so terrible, it makes me sound like a witch mother that doesn’t want to spend any time with my girl. I totally understand what people were thinking.”
The reality of their parenting life is far more involved despite a schedule that changes week-to-week.
My goodness, the perfect morning, making pizza & wonky pastry shapes…
A photo posted by Rachael Finch (@rachael_finch) on
“Violet is with us Monday to Friday. I have Tuesday and Thursday off from work but it changes weekly. We don’t have a conventional nine to five. Some shoots, Violet is on the shoot with me, she travels pretty much everywhere we go. If we go to Melbourne for two weeks, she’s there with us in the hotel, she comes and sits on set with us and plays her games. She comes everywhere with us,” she says.
“We have chosen not to put her in daycare as we want to raise her until it’s time for her to go to school, which I’m dreading because I just want to hold on to her for as long as possible. And you know what, it’s not every weekend – it’s the weekend when her Grandmother is in town, we’re in town and we would like to have a date night.”
Finch says she just wants Violet to be loved and raised by people that love her as much as she does. (Post continues after gallery.)
“I understand people that need daycare as they have to work but we’re fortunate enough to be able to take Violet with us. Everyone’s life is different.”
It’s not the first time the Myer ambassador and author has faced backlash.
All focus was on her “post-baby body” when she appeared in Women’s Day wearing a bikini just a month after giving birth to Violet in 2013.
It’s not a decision Finch regrets.
A photo posted by Rachael Finch (@rachael_finch) on
“You make choices along the way in your career that you might look back on and think ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done that’ or ‘I understand why the backlash was there’ but this was a decision that we made and I felt comfortable doing it,” she said.
“I had a beautiful soul [Violet] in front of me and that was kind of the main thing, I wasn’t really thinking about ‘I’m sitting there in a bikini’. I look at the picture now and go ‘Oh, I was in a bikini, I can see how that would have looked’.”
But you won’t see her doing it this time round,with Finch currently eight months pregnant with her second child .
“I’m a big believer in trusting in yourself at that current point in time and I made that decision, and you stick with it. And if it is wrong, get on with it, move on ahead. Make the next conversation a positive one,” she says.
“We learn from every mistake – If I didn’t do that shoot I wouldn’t have learned that next time, next baby, I won’t be doing that. Things have changed and I think I’m a different person.”
She’s also learned not to take the criticism to heart, taking everything with a grain of salt.
Image: Instagram/@rachael_finch
'I've grown up with brothers, I've grown up in a tough skin, in competitive sport, and I've learnt it's not the end of the world. And that's part of finding yourself - it doesn't really matter," she says.
"I can scroll through thousands of comments and none of them will hit home, none of them will make me start to well with tears. I just think 'Well I've made the decision, I can see how that's happened'. The comments that matter to me are the ones my husband and family say to me."
Finch admits being in the public eye and working in such an image-focused industry can be difficult.
"You've got to be very careful. Every word, every picture, every gesture, even coming across to air hostesses as a little bit rude when you're just having a bad day" she says.
"That's why being mindful and being grateful has been such a big thing in my life. We're here, we're alive and we're happy."
Listen to our other IDKHSDI episodes - including the advice all sleep deprived mother's need to hear.
Subscribe to Mamamia podcasts, and buy any books mentioned on our shows - including Rachael's - here.
Top Comments
Just shows you have to be really careful with what you say to the media. They are lucky that they don't need to put their daughter in daycare and can still work, and as they spend so much time with her, date night is more important than ever.