She’s due to give birth to her first baby in a week’s time, but Seven Year Switch‘s Jackie Martin is already having her ability as a mother questioned.
Uploading a shot of her rounded belly in workout gear to her gym’s Instagram account, the soon-to-be mother wrote about finishing her last group fitness class before maternity leave.
“Yesterday I taught my last#GroupFitnessClass for a little while at#39weekspregnant,” the reality TV star told Division X members.
“Could probably keep going next week but the participants are starting to look petrified! And if baby holds off a little longer – I should probably seize the moment to actually have a few days off. Can’t wait to get back into it. 4 weeks? Will that be enough time?? Haha.”
While Jackie says she was making a joke, it seems not everyone was laughing.
What followed was an online article comparing Jackie’s post-baby plans to Michelle Bridges’ post-baby routine, which was widely touted as ‘irresponsible’ and ‘concerning’.
But Jackie says she is offended by the imputation she is being negligent as a mother, and has penned a scathing retort to those who doubt her.
“Media that are calling my joke about returning to exercise ‘irresponsible’ are not only offending my job professionalism but me as a mother. And I will not tolerate it,” the 31-year-old fired back on her personal Instagram on Monday night.
“Anyone can say whatever they like about me on a Reality TV show and I couldn’t give a toss.
“There are thousands of nasty comments on the Internet and I couldn’t care less. However DO NOT CRITICISE ME AS AN EXERCISE PROFESSIONAL OR MOTHER.”
Jackie, who decided to stay with long-term partner Tim at the end of the Channel Seven series, says the fact she was joking in her original post was made obvious by the inclusion of emojis, question marks and “haha” at the end.
“It’s pretty obvious it’s not 100% serious.
“Firstly I’m not advocating weight-lifting or running – I said BoxaBIKE which has zero impact because you are sitting on a bike.”
Returning to work doesn’t necessarily mean strenuous exercise for Jackie, either.
“I can actually teach this program off the bike by giving direction, so it really comes down to my baby and when it would be ready to be left alone with Tim for an hour, whether I’ve got expressing under control. Not whether or not I’m ready to exercise.”
And then, in the most epic fashion, Jackie slam-dunked the haters who say she’ll be returning to work early to lose baby weight.
“Let me be very clear on this next point – I do not give a flying f*** about baby weight, returning to exercise for me has NOTHING to do with my body,” she writes.
“It is because I created the Group Fitness Program and I need to teach it to maintain the program’s integrity. I don’t care how long my body takes to ‘bounce back’ if at all and I will proudly wear a bikini on the beach with saggy skin and stretch marks for the rest of my life and own it.”
Top Comments
I think we should start shaming people who don't understand humour, especially when someone says Ha Ha etc and it is therefore obvious they are joking.
The next time someone gets outraged and has a twitter breakdown because they are assuming someone who made a joke was actually being serious, that person should be hounded by all of us till they attend a laughter workshop, where they should have to be counselled as to what humour and sarcasm are. They should also be forced to publicly apologise to all of us for their lack of understanding of what a humorous message is compared to a serious one.
They should also be forced to apologise to those who have wasted our times reading their stories about how outraged they are, and then half way through the story we discover that they are too stupid to figure out what most normal people can figure out that the original comment was made in jest.
If they become a repeat offender and despite counselling can not tell the difference between a joke and a serious message, despite the use of emoticons etc, then they should be banished to an island where Twitter and social media does not exist so that they can leave the rest of us the hell alone!
Then we can all sign a collective breath that those people who are so intellectually inferior to the rest of us, that they are perpetually offended by inoffensive comments, have been banished from our world.
Gotta go now and set up a change.org petition about this!
Where do I sign?!?!
I'm uncomfortable with the 'do not question me or criticize me as a professional' attitude. A professional should be capable of and willing to explain their professional actions ( which she did) the 'don't question me' attitude in a professional setting is usually the go to response from narcissists or those who are not expert enough to understand & explain their reasons (so not actual experts). Parenting is a whole other ball game, but in a professional setting or when claiming expertise you should absolutely expect the explain & defend your professional decisions.
I think she said the don't question it part because most people had no idea what sort of exercise it was, and as she went on to explain she could direct classes without having any physical involvement.