Chrissie Swan with her kids
In June this year, media personality Chrissie Swan’s parenting skills came under fire when photos of Chrissie and her children appeared in the Australian Women’s Weekly.
Just about everyone in the country jumped in to have a say – including a 21-year-old Neighbours actress. This was the response from Mamamia’s Contributing Editor, Bec Sparrow. It’s #9 on our list of 2012′s most read posts.
by REBECCA SPARROW
Six days ago, a really, really weird thing happened. It appears that the entire Australian population turned into Carol and Mike Brady.
We went to bed on Tuesday night as normal and woke up as our favourite perfect TV parents.
Don’t be coy – you know I’m right. Think about it. In the past week none of our kids watched more than 30 minutes of C-classification TV a day. We didn’t utter a single swear word in front of them. Haven’t argued or bickered with our partner in their presence. And we most certainly didn’t flip the bird at that taxi driver who cut us off in the traffic.
At all times we have been attentive to our kids needs. Never speaking to them in harsh tones. And joyfully playing ‘shops’ with our toddler even though their shop is a rip-off and charges us $50 for a single apple. We don’t mind. We suck it up with joy. JOY.
And did I mention that our kids have eaten nutritious food the entire time this week? Fish fingers? Pah. It’s been home cooked meals and snacks all week. And don’t get me started on the volunteering they did on Sunday afternoon.
Yep. That’s what the last week has been like.
Chrissie Swan on the cover of the Australian Women’s Weekly
At least I assume it has.
Because what other reason could there be for the mind-boggling amount of venom that has been directed at Chrissie Swan and her parenting skills since last Wednesday when photos of Chrissie and her kids appeared in the Australian Women’s Weekly (you can read about that here)?
The entire country – including a twenty-one-year-old Neighbours actress – has felt the need to tell Chrissie that she’s a shit mum because her three-year-old son Leo is over-weight.
How very, very helpful of us. No really. Hi-fives all round!
I have watched in horror over the past few days as people have written the most insulting and cruel things about Chrissie and her beautiful sons Leo and Kit.
Chrissie is a friend of mine. A dear friend. And aside from the fact that she’s hilarious and warm and compassionate and whip-smart, she’s also a terrific mum. The type of mum whose face lights up when her boys enter the room. The type of mum who bombards her Facebook feed with photos of them (sorry Chrissie but you do … seriously, you’re like the paparazzi to your own kids). The type of mum who is raising her sons to be compassionate, gentle, generous, hilarious, kind, curious kids.
But none of that matters apparently. Because Leo is over-weight.
Writing in the newspaper yesterday, Chrissie was painfully honest in talking about her denial over Leo’s weight and the role she has played:
I was put on my first diet at the age of 11. This involved turning up to group meetings with grown women in a church hall, slipping off my shoes and being publicly weighed. I was counting kilojoules and whipping skim milk into fluff, as a snack, before I had left primary school. I didn’t want anything like this for my son. But in my desire to avoid the demonisation of food and the low self-esteem it inevitably creates, I had unwittingly set my beautiful son on a rocky path.
It wasn’t until I took him to his first day of creche that I saw how different he was. The other kids seemed so small compared to my little sweetheart, whose shoes and pants were at least two sizes bigger. Mild panic set in. What happens if someone is mean to him? What happens when, after three years of being told he is magnificent, someone tells him otherwise, based on his weight? I could barely breathe.
Now not that it’s ANY of our business but is Chrissie doing something about Leo’s weight? Of course. The article goes on to say that Chrissie has since taken her little boy to a paediatric dietician and that the issue wasn’t that Leo was eating garbage food but that he was eating far too much healthy food (so, for example, Chrissie has had to learn portion sizes for fruit and that four bananas a day isn’t healthy.) Leo is now on the path to more appropriate meal sizes and healthy eating.
The end. No really – THE END. Except it’s not because now strangers are piling on to abuse Chrissie and her son Leo. Who is three-years-old. How much do you think Chrissie and her partner are beating themselves up about this? A lot. Here’s what Chrissie tweeted yesterday:
Chrissie tweeted yesterday
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None of us are perfect parents. We stuff up. We make bad judgement calls. We think we’re doing the right thing by our kids and yet despite the best of intentions, we veer off course. We sometimes influence them in the worst ways rather than the best.
It’s called parenting. And we’re all just in it together trying our best.
Me included. Last week I realised that I could turn ABC for Kids on at any time of the day and my three-year-old Ava could immediately name the show AND the main characters. Yes, even Rastamouse. How did that happen? I let things slip, that’s how. So we’re back to strictly limiting her TV viewing time. And Rastafarian mice are no longer on the viewing schedule.
I’m not perfect. But, like Chrissie, I love my children and I’ll make sure I keep reassessing things along the way so that when we inevitably fall off track, we hop back on.
As for Mike and Carol Brady, well I’ll remind you that not even they got it right all the time. Greg stole a goat. Peter routinely told lies. Cindy was a total snitch. And Jan had such low self-esteem she started wearing a black curly wig just so she’d stand out.
Talk about bad parenting …
Chrissie first shot to fame in the 2003 series of Big Brother Australia.
Editor’s note: please be aware that Chrissie will be reading this post and the comments, even if she doesn’t reply. So bear that in mind if you decide to leave a comment. Any harsh, rude or offensive comments about Chrissie or her children will be deleted. Chrissie brought this issue out into the light by writing about it but we will not publish derogatory comments about children. Please be kind and compassionate.
Have a listen to Chrissie’s reply to her critics when she went on Mix 101.1.
Comments
48 Comments so far
Chrissie is known for being outspoken about other people’s behaviour-I do think it’s balanced for her to cop some back.
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“It’s called parenting. And we’re all just in it together trying our best.” Very insensitive tag line for the many of us desperate to be parents who aren’t “in it”. Sorry I know I am probably having an over-sensitive day but there are a LOT of those days on the ivf rollercoaster.
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Yep, here is the result of my very own perfect parenting.
http://2012-proudlyme.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/year-of-hanging-out-with-police-officers.html
Chrissie and I have a few things in common (we will both be judged as mothers, AND we have a love for Akira kaftans).
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My problem is on the other end of the scales. My 4 year old has decided of late not to eat. She will have one or two spoonfuls of her meal and no amount bribery, patience, punishment etc will change her mind. I let her help cook meals and choose what she would like. But nothing
,,.. The only thing she will eat is junk. So I know it’s not medical.
She was a tiny thing to begin with and she is looking very scrawny now indeed.
Any ideas ?
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Milkshakes. And hide Sustagen and eggs in them.
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RELAX, and get some advice from one of those quite practical parenting people. Your GP may know some. I find food issues with kids, particularly not eating are exacerbated when the parents are anxious around mealtimes, and in general stressed about the whole thing. I worked in childcare, and children who refused to eat for the parents, would often eat for me because i didnt make a big deal out of it. I heard once, and believe, that you should look at what they eat over a week, not a day, and usually it’s fine. Thinking this took a lot of the pressure off. They may not eat much at all one day, but a tonne the next day. Anyway, good luck with it, it’s a horrible feeling that you’re not nourishing your child, but it’s usually quite easily fixed and does NOT make you a bad parent. Good luck x
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Chrissy – If a skinny kid asks for food because he is hungry and he is denied food, this action of withholding would be classed as child abuse.
With the knowledge you had at the time (my child is hungry and needs to be fed, and good food is good for him), you were absolutely doing the right thing. When it became apparent something was wrong, again, you did the right thing and sought help.
Brady Bunch parents are always going to find something to whine about. In a way, I think that if they have that sort of time and attention to be so worked up about something so pathetic (imaginary child abuse) – well, it’s good that some people have such great lives right?
Good for them, that they don’t have to deal with actual problems 
Keep it real sweetie. For what it’s worth from some random stranger – You are doing just fine
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Health professionals are in a difficult spot when assessing children’s weight ,particularly if they don’t know them, as in an emergency department presentation. Growth charts and the BMI may not be perfect but they’re better than nothing. Of course, using your professional judgement is very necessary too. I know it’s not pleasant being subtly accused of child abuse/neglect, or questioned about how you look after your kids, but they have to. It’s part of their professional responsibilities and if it saves some children…..
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None of us are dieticians and as parents you only try to do your best. Which is all Chrissy appears to have been trying to do – her best. Her kids look happy and healthy and once the portion sizings are right, they’ll be back on a flying start.
Parenting and food are hard. My yardstick has always been are my kids healthy, with lots of energy? If yes, I’m doing fine.
I was a skinny kid who burnt off everything and my post-war parents really worried. So I was loaded up and had to finish everything on my plate. Bad, bad stuff that triggered type 2 diabetes. Looking back, I think I was pre-diabetic at age 21 and struggled with my weight ever since.
I’ve always put a sensible portion to my kids, but let them eat till they are full. Sometimes that’s more, sometimes less.
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I was tiny as a toddler, and my parents were contantly told I needed to eat. I in fact ate like a horse! I also bruised very easily (still do). My Dad remembers being taken into another room and questioned at the hospital when I’d fallen and broken my arm as I was scrawny and had lots of tomboy-causes bruises. When we got there they immediately decided that I was malnourished because I was tiny. Never mind that we’d just been to a birthday party where I’d consumed all sorts of health and non-healthy food! I’m certainly not scrawny now, I’m 5 foot 10 and curvy, and my parents and I get to laugh about it. But I wonder how hurt Dad was after being put through the wringer like that, he and I both remember distinctly being separated and questioned about my weight, and it’s certainly stuck with me.
Chrissie comes across as a wonderful mum, and I’d certainly be very proud to be a mum like her one day.
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I have a love-hate relationship with technology these days for this very reason. I reckon we should do a united ‘flip the bird’ thingy to all those people who feel the need to be cruel or… well, basically just ordinary old busy-bodies. I plan on tweeting for good (this story). My only concern with this article, Rebecca Sparrow, is that is says as a child you cleary saw far too many re-runs of the Brady Bunch to have that level of detail (Jan’s black wig?!) Oh I so remember that episode. Love it! Women rock! And working mothers are the best role models a child can have.
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Honestly Chrissie, you are an amazing mother and care deeply for the well-being of your kids.
You rock!!!
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The “weight” issue annoys me a lot! I have only learned my lesson to not sit in judgement watching the growth of my own kids. I was a tiny, skinny runt of a child who was clinically ‘underweight’ until my mid twenties. I grew at 14-15 and am now 5 ft 4 and 57 kgs which is average (and takes effort to maintain as I now gain weight easily). My husband is 6 ft and about 85kg (which is technically overweight) but he is a ‘muscular’ build (broad shoulders, very muscular legs). He has ALWAYS had a small ‘jelly belly’ that no amount of exercise affects, and ‘love humps’ on his waist- WHICH ARE GENETIC (his mother has them). Both of my children have inherited them. My son was average in height and weight for his age until he reached about 8 when he suddenly became decidedly pudgy and grew ‘love handles’ WITH NO CHANGE IN DIET AT ALL! We don’t eat junk food and have always exercised. I was embarrassed by his chubbiness and worried endlessly about judgements by others (including health professionals)- so I spoke to the family doctor. She reviewed our diet and said “Don’t worry about it. He eats healthily and has a lot of growing to do”. You know what? He is now 12 and hit puberty so has grown 25cm in a year- and his weight hasn’t changed. He’s nearly as tall as me at present and has miles more growing to do. His weight is average (52 kg) at 5 ft 3. What I have learned is that everyone is DIFFERENT (even your offspring) and to try not to judge (but I still do a little if I see a severely overweight child scoffing down hot chips and coke). I also watched a study on SBS which had different types of people (all thin) put on high calorie diets over a period of months (the same amount of calories for each subject). The results were astonishing. Some people (Asian men in particular) converted the calories to MUSCLE MASS (lucky buggers!) and gained hardly any fat at all, while the distribution of weight gain amongst the others varied wildly- with some gaining huge amounts and others moderate amounts. Their conclusion was that different body types and genetic factors mean we process “energy intake” differently. We’ve got lots yet to learn about the topic!
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Chrissie you are doing a great job. The first thing I saw when looked at the pics was love. I could see the love in your eyes for your boys and the happiness in theirs was just beautiful. I felt bad tonight cuz I felt like today I didn’t give my daughter enough time today but you know what? I will wake up tomorrow and do what I do best. I will love her.
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I don’t have children, and as a young 19 year old I don’t plan on it for a long time, therefore i dont bare the right to comment on how someone should/ shouldn’t raise their kids- however reading this made me so mad. Automatically i want to jump in and defend this family- How dare anyone judge Chrissie and her family based on looks. By sounds of it she is doing a fantastic job, so good on her! All the best for the future
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Chrissie is doing her best, she has recognised an issue & is doing something about it. Good on her. Why are we so judgmental when it comes to parenting? It’s not a competitive sport, is it?
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Ha!! Have you been to a mothers’/play group, kindy,, daycare or primary school lately?
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Yep I made that mistake once. 12 years ago when my first born was 9 months old, I took him to play group. I was berated by several mums there because my son was walking! Oh the horror! I had set him up for a lifetime of health issues, not to mention how it was affecting his developing brain! Almost 13 yrs later and he seems just fine as do his brothers and I have happily avoided all group mother situations and have been happy doing so. I am not naive, I just choose not to participate in the bullshit.
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My two girls walked at nine months and nine and a half months, my son the day before his first birthday. How do you stop a baby from walking, and what health/brain development issues could walking possibly cause?
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Exactly, being judged on something you cannot control is ridiculous
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My sisters 4 yr old daughter recently got her 5th filling. Yup 5th!!! She couldn’t work it out no junk food, lollies in her house, no fuzzy drinks and brushing always occurred!! The culprit….,, her daughters love of fruit!!! We have “the right” food shoved down our throats but no one ever thinks healthy food can be bad for you. Yes it can be too much is bad!!!!
I don’t think my sister is a bad mother just like I don’t think chrissy is a bad mother. People need to look at themselves and their own actions before judging and turning a lovely photo from a woman’s magazine into a target!!!
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As a parent no matter what you do it will always be wrong in someone else’s eyes. Our daughter is 11months and under the 3rd percentile for her weight, she is naturally really tiny and active, but we are currently being told we should fatten her up. She eats the same if not more than other children her age. I refuse to start putting butter into her meals to help her put on weight because where does it stop, at 3 am I then going to be told that she has put on too much weight from following the advice I have been given?? Keep doing what you are doing Chrissy you are an amazing mum!!
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I am very pleased that Chrissy is getting sensible advice regarding her son’s diet. She seems like a kind, loving and responsible parent. However, when a child is considerably obese, especially at a young age, (and I don’t consider Chrissy’s son to be considerably obese from looking at the photo), then who else is to blame except the parents/guardians who are providing that child’s daily food intake, and from whom they are learning sensible eating habits? Of course no parent is perfect, but ultimately the buck has to stop with the parents. Genetics only contributes so much – the rest is learned behaviour.
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I sounded too harsh I think, so Chrissy if you love your kids they are already in the correct household, this will help them for the rest of their lives, they have plenty of time to learn about diet, or what we think is the correct diet now, how different will it be in years to come
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Try and ask people whose kids are now grown up!!! I had a thin child who ate what he liked and stayed thin, I had a child that was pudgy and we just accepted that he ate what the rest of us did so it was” natural” . Now 30 years later the thin kid has a hassle staying thin and the pudgy one has no problem with his weight.
Who knew??? As long as they are healthy, my main dictate has always been: don’t make them clean their plate!!!! Let the kids decide what is enough, and of course desert is part of the meal and not a reward for finishing the first part of it, so yes you can have desert ( a set amount)even though you haven’t cleaned your plate Don’t expect them to finish stuff , yes of course you can throw the rest of that sandwich away, but of course you don’t get anything sweet in its place, and that also includes too much fruit.
A balanced diet means just that, 6 apples a day is bad for you as that is a high sugar content. Speak to your kids about what the different foods are doing to their body, it worked for 3 of my 4, the other knows the difference he just loves cooking and eating it.
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Good on Chrissy for acknowledging the problem & fixing it – it takes a lot of courage to do. I’ve recently had to change my owns kids diets, ive been feeding them way to much sugar & take away food, using the ” I’m a working mum with no time” excuse. It’s been hard to wean them off the junk but we’re getting better everyday and my guilt is slowing starting to go too!
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God I’m glad I’m not famous, and I think very few of Chrissie’s detractors would hold up to the scrutiny that she has to go through.
Also, I saw a doco called The Truth About Exercise the other week which showed that some people have gene variants which cause them not to respond to exercise like other people – there is a continuum of response levels to identical amounts of exercise – some people get heaps of benefit, some get zero. I think it would be nice to consider things like this before putting all the blame on lifestyle.
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I watched that doco too, it was really interesting. But it did say that everyone benefited from exercise in some way but it wasn’t the best method for weight loss for everybody and that different people benefitted from different forms eg short but high intensity, weight training, interval etc. Other people might respond better to dietary changes as opposed to exercise for losing weight. At the end of the day it still comes down to lifestyle. And in chrissys case she said it comes down to lifestyle for her son. I think she’s a great example of someone not making excuses, doing something about it and then sharing that knowledge with the rest of us. I can’t understand why she got so much criticism for this?
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Great post Bec. I think Chrissie Swan is fab and missed this horrible episode when it happened. I think being in the public eye on issues like this must be very difficult. I think all parents are sensitive to criticism of their child-raising abilities, but most are only doing their absolute best and would be horrified if they thought they were doing something that may hurt them. Chrissie has done the best thing by seeking help when she realised there was a problem, as any good parent would! She clearly adores her kids and I would definitely have chosen her as my Mum if that was even possible (She was only a few years old when I was born lol).
My boys watch ABC for kids, eat processed foods at times and I have dropped the odd ‘curse’ word in their presence. They are gorgeous, healthy and very happy. There are people in this world seriously neglecting their children…abusing them, doing drugs in front of them and not giving them enough to eat. That is a reality. If only all the people judging poor Chrissie’s parenting put that energy into making the world a better place and trying to protect the children who are truly neglected.
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Great article. Whenever I see Chrissie the only thing I think is what a gorgeous friend she would be. How she is raising her kids is totally up to her. I’m too busy trying to parent mine to be offering opinions on anyone else’s.
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I am a great mumma. But am I perfect? Far from it. How exhausting would it be to strive to be a perfect ? Imagine all the fun you’d miss out on along the way. I have my good days. But I have some bad ones too. As Chrissie’s tweet says, ‘we’re all just doing our bestest’. And our bestest should be enough.
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I feel very strongly that, whilst social media has many positives, the nastiness of anoniminity that people hide behind before firing off nastiness is appalling and says more about themselves than their victims. Perhaps it is time for a “Movement Against Nastiness”?
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I think you are an awesome parent Chrissy because you love your children and it looks like you have lots of fun together.
I grew up with a yoyo life of diets and binging because I didn’t know any better, while I wish I could redo school being slimmer, I would never change my wonderful relationship with my mum.
And no one has the right to judge anyone else’s parenting!
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Remember high school maths and a little thing called normal distribution? Which says that in any population (of people, animals, whatever) there will be a few that are very small, a few that are very large and a lot in the middle.
I’m 5’1 and thin and my husband is 5’6 and very thin. When our daughter was born, she weighed 5lb 13oz. She was a great baby, breastfed like a champion and really happy most of the time but she was always way below the 3% line when she got weighed and measured at her checkups. Which meant I was always asked if I was feeding her, or feeding her often enough and on and on. Over months, I started to feel pretty bad visiting the nurse because I left feeling like I was starving my baby. One day, after a visit to the nurse, I suddenly realized that if you assembled a group of 100 women, I’d be in the smallest three and my husband would be pretty close, too, if you did the same thing with men. I stopped getting my daughter weighed at that point and I never compared her size to other kids again. She got tiny genes from us and will never be even close to average in size.
Even with healthy eating and exercise, some people will never fit on a normal distribution chart. Judging kids (or their parents) if they don’t shouldn’t be normal though, it’s just mean.
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I have the opposite! I am 5’3″ and overweight at size 14. Hubby is 6’2″ and fit. My nearly 6yo is tall and willowy (about 97th percentile for height and 50th for weight). Her 4yo sister is likewise tall but proportionate for weight.
People in Australia comment from time to time on the height of my girls. But in PNG, where we have been since 2010, and here in Bangkok comment daily on the size of them even calling my 4yo fat!
As you said, there is a huge range of shapes and sizes and this varies from race to race.
I’ve taught my girls that they are perfect “Penny sized” and perfect “Abi sized”. Works at the moment but not sure for how mch longer.
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I agree with you on this – people certainly have a genetic hardwiring to make them small boned, big boned, have a slow metabolism, fast metabolism. I also believe that children absorb everything in their world, including how to eat. Monkey see monkey do, right? It is so important for parents to teach their children to eat well. Good for Chrissie for seeking advice on correct portion sizes.
I am an average weight, my one year old son is steadily in the 50th percentile. I realize a lot of this is healthy eating, part of it is genetics. But I do realize that I eat waaaay more fruit than veg, and therefore so does my son. I have made a conscious effort to start including vegetables in our meal (oh the look on his face when he ate romaine lettuce for the first time tonight!). It is hard to break habits but well worth it.
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Yes people have different metabolic rates but there is no such thing as big boned or small boned which would contribute to one being overweight, just taller or shorter.
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With all due respect, I have to disagree with you. I have a very slight build, as does my daughter. That is our genetic lot and while we are short as well I have short sisters in law who are much larger in build. Even though they are reasonably lean, their wrists and ankles will never look like mine, nor hips or shoulders. Some people have a large build and will never be able to look like the people who have a slight build. Some kids will also grow much faster than others and comparing them may be a mistake if the kid eats a healthy diet and gets exercise. I had to stop comparing my kid to others because she was so slightly built that it was making me miserable. I think it’s probably fair to say that if my kid is off the graph for littleness, then another could be off the graph for largeness, too, even where diet and physical activity is equal.
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I think we’re talking about 2 different things here – frame and body fat. You can have a slight frame and high body fat, and somebody else might have a larger frame but lower body fat. It is important that we look at the body as a whole – weight itself is not enough of a measure.
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This is what I meant. There are people who have a build but this does not mean they are fat. If you have a look at many of the athletes, esp. Female basketballers, they definitely have a larger frame but they are not fat. Too often the excuse of ‘big boned’ is used when it is really about being overweight.
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The big boned thing is such an old wives tale. It’s used as an excuse for eating too much.
No-one had big bones in Changi.
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No-one had much of anything in Changi.
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Of course being big boned contributes little to weight. However GENETICS, which was what Danica was talking about, have a massive influence.
If you want to take the ridiculously unusual example of Changi, there would have been some people who lost weight more slowly when they starved and some who just saw it fall off. Our body size is a combination of genes and environment, and we need to consider genetic causes before dismissing this as an ‘excuse’.
Additionally, there are a myriad of social reasons that it can be difficult, both practically and mentally, to eat healthily and exercise to maintain a healthy weight. It’s not about excuses, it’s about real barriers.
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Thanks, distracted, that is what I meant. You articulated it much better than I did!
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I think it’s amusing that people seem to make excuses for the fact that she has a child who is quite overweight. Chrissy herself doesn’t seem to be doing this and has made the changes doctors recommended.
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I’m not making excuses or sitting in judgement. As you say, Chrissie is getting excellent advice and doing a lot more than many parents (myself included) might do in a similar situation. My point is that Chrissie’s son may be bigger than his peers due to a number of factors – he may be growing earlier than other kids, he may be naturally a big kid, and he may be overeating. I don’t know and I won’t point the finger because I didn’t like it when it got pointed at me for (possibly) neglecting to feed my kid enough.
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You don’t need to point the finger at her (and her partner) or sit in judgement. We know why her son is overweight, she told us, in that wonderful Chrissy swan way. He’s not bigger than his peers for any other reason than he eats too much and she provides that food. Now, she’s changing that.
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I admire her for being so honest.
I personally have kids that dont struggle with their weight. But sometimes I look at my kids with a critical eye to make sure I am not seeing it.
Good luck Chrisy with your journey it is a hard road for all of us parents to do the right thing
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