June 10, 2025 • 10 mins
What if failing to be the perfect parent was the point all along?
In this raw and deeply moving preview episode, Justin and Kylie unpack the heart, humour, and humanity behind Mumming—a memoir by Victoria Vanstone about a year of trying (and failing) to be a better parent. From shouty moments to terrifying near-loss, Victoria’s journey reminds us that imperfection is part of the gig. Because parenting isn’t about getting it right. It’s about showing up, loving fiercely, and doing the best we can.
KEY POINTS
- Perfection is overrated: Victoria Vanstone's story is a refreshing reminder that parenting doesn’t require perfection—it just asks for presence and persistence.
- Imperfection can be a superpower: By owning her flaws, Victoria models growth and authenticity—for herself and her children.
- Love always involves risk: Whether it’s sending your teen to the plaza or surviving a choking emergency, parenting requires us to let go—and that’s terrifying and transformative.
- Identity as a parent takes time: Mumming is as much about self-discovery as it is about raising kids. Who we want to be isn’t always who we are—but we can still move in the right direction.
- Humour and honesty heal: Victoria’s writing blends wit, wisdom, and the kind of vulnerability that helps parents everywhere feel less alone.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“So long as you’re trying, you’re not actually failing.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Mumming by Victoria Vanstone (book)
- Full interview available on the Happy Families podcast (Saturday drop)
- happyfamilies.com.au – for more parenting resources
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Embrace your imperfections. Notice where you feel like you’re “failing” and reframe it—what effort or love lies beneath?
- Talk honestly with your kids. Share age-appropriate truths about your struggles or mistakes. It builds trust and models growth.
- Laugh at the mess. Use humour as a way to connect and ease the tension that comes with everyday parenting chaos.
- Let love stretch you. Whether it’s letting go of control or facing fear, love will always ask something big of you. Step into that stretch.
- Read something real. Pick up Mumming or another memoir that normalises the messy beauty of parenting. You’re not alone.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I've just finished reading a book and we're going to
talk about that book today on the Happy Families Podcast.
The book is called Mumming. It's by award winning podcast
Victoria Vanstone, and we are going to get into a
couple of bits that really reached out and grabbed me
as I spoke with Victoria recently about her book, A
Year of Trying and Failing to be a Better Parent.
(00:27):
Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real parenting solutions every
day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. Sometimes being a
mum is just hard work. I would love to read
so much stuff to you from this book, but I'm
not going to. Instead, I'm going to ask Kylie, how
do you like being a mum? Not a trick question.
You looked at me like, didn't see that one coming.
I didn't forewarn you.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
You didn't know.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Been a trying couple of days in our home.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It has been a trying couple of days.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We are the parenting experts apparently, But so Mumming, A
Year of Trying and failing to be a bit of
parent by Victoria.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Vans Glad she only had a year of it. We're
coming on twenty five, and I'm oh, well.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Oh well all right. So what we do most Wednesdays
if I have great chats with people, is we play
a sniffet just a preview of how wonderful my interview was.
You and I talk about it, and then on Saturday
we played the whole interview for you. That's what we're
going to do today. Because Victoria was just a treat.
She was such a delight to talk to. I was
talking to her about the book, like why write a
book about being a mum, And She's really clear, like,
(01:30):
I don't really know who I am as a mum.
It's really hard to be and I've just got three kids.
So there's a lot going on in her home and
her husband, poor John. She calls him just poor John
because apparently she reckons she's a lot. And this is
what she said about walking out who she is as
she writes a book about being a mum.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I find that we're living in a world where imperfection
isn't accepted. And I've found that embracing my imperfections whilst
writing and whilst being a mum has actually kind of
been my superpower. As I've gone on along and learned
who I am as a mother, because I do think
it kind of takes some training to work out who
I want to be and who I actually am. And
(02:08):
I think there was a point very early in the
book where I was shouting too much, and it's a
trait that's carried on throughout my family. No, my mum
shouted at me, and now I shout at my children,
and I hear my mum's voice ricocheting around my house,
and I realized that I didn't want to be that person.
So this book is about that journey, about me trying
to become the mum I thought I wanted to be.
(02:29):
But actually it was so interesting writing it because I
was trying to do better, But the point kind of
got lost along the way because I didn't really get
that much better. But that was okay.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I love this idea of being able to embrace our shortcomings.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I think even if you're a shouting mum who swears
a little bit too much.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I think that there's so much perfectionism within society and
this need to have the perfect life, the perfect family,
and there's such a need to be seen to having
the perfect family, the perfect children, the perfect husband, the
perfect home. There's just so much perfectionism squashed into our lives.
(03:14):
And I love how real she is and just acknowledging
that once I'm able to embrace who I am, there's
actually real power in that, because then I get to
decide whether or not I like who I am, and
I can actually act from a place of power.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Identity is critically important. Victoria is remarkably self aware and
extremely honest. I would say that she is extremely human.
She's so human if I'm perfectly honest, I'm not into
reading these kinds of parenting memoirs. I just it takes
a lot to pull me in, and I read so
many parenting books.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Now. I was pretty shocked when I saw it on
your bedside.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, and yet she says things like I haven't always
been a shower. Before I had children, I had nothing
to shout about, so perfect or she says deep inside
me somewhere as the mother, I wanted to be the
one that Niels holds shoulders, looks at children in the
eyes and says softly, Now, Fred, we're on the same team.
We can figure this out together. Let's go on a
(04:12):
treasure hunt and find your mysterious lost shoe. I know
she's there, but like the shoe, I can't find her.
She's been replaced with the cheaper version, a worn out substitute.
It wasn't meant to be like this, Mumming. I mean,
that's so good. I just I'm getting goosebumps reading it.
The prologue. It all started by the side of a road.
She's six, she's in the UK. Her parents have taken
(04:35):
the family on a holiday to France where they go camping.
They fill up the car, they forget that the kids
aren't in the back, and they drive off and leave them,
and they are gone for an extended period of time,
like a long time, no mobile phones, nothing, And she
just says, I knew. I knew that, in spite of
my parents obviously imperfection, that they were going to come
back for me. I knew they'd come back. I'm getting
(04:55):
weepy just talking about it, because that's what parents do.
And reading this book, Mumming year of trying and failing
to be a better parent, it highlights that as long
as you're trying, you're not actually failing.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I remember a conversation I had with our family doctor
back when one of our children was diagnosed with the
most severe dust allergy that I've ever heard of, And
as a parent at the time, I was thinking, I
got to put her in a bubble, like, I don't
know how to do this. There is dust everywhere, literally,
like our entire environment. No matter how much I keep
(05:28):
this clean, she's surrounded by it. And he looked at
me and he just said, Kylie, He said, you will
do more damage to your child if you spend all
your time being so anxious about making sure she has
a dust free environment than just acknowledging that it's there
and you are going to do the best you can,
(05:48):
but at the end of the day, you can't remove it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
After the break, a heart stopping moment literally that almost
led to one of Victoria's children not being with us anymore.
She tells the story so sublimely well, and it is.
It's one of those earth shattering moments. It happened while
she was writing the book, so it went into the book.
I can't wait to share with you what she had
to say about that.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Okay, this one's pretty hard to listen to. But when
I was talking to Victoria Vanstone about her book Mumming
A year of trying and failing, to be a better parent.
She wrote this, and I'm just going to read like
a page page in a half. Then I want to
play to you what she had to say about it.
She says, June, We're in a camp of van on
a road trip in Perth when the worst day of
our lives unfolds. His lips are blue. He's not breathing.
(06:42):
After a picnic on a quiet beach, the kids scare
a lolly each as a treat. I thought nothing of it.
I hand them in the packet and strap them into
their car seats. I get in the front seat. John
starts the engine and we pull away. The next sound
is not a sound any mother should ever hear, the
sound of their child unable to get errand of their lungs.
I turn around to see Fred mouth wide open, gasping
for air. Stop the car. I owner my seat belt
(07:04):
and lurch into the back to un do his seat
belt and pull him upward into my arms. He's choking John.
I turn him upside down and hit his back. Do
a Heimlich maneuver, but nothing comes out. John pulls up
the handbrake and climbs into the back of the camp
of van. I'm thumping Fred's back, but his body is floppy,
hanging over my forearms, lifeless like a rag doll. He
can't breathe, it's not working. Give him to me. Our
eyes meet as I hand him over. We both know
(07:25):
our son is dying. Run out onto the street and
shout for help. Run go now. I watch my husband
fold Fred's limp little body over his lap and bang
his back. I don't look for my phone no time.
I'm moving towards the door. I can't reach the hand
or quick enough. I burst through the side door of
the van into the sunlight and find myself on an
empty street in the town of Geraldson. Noise is coming
from me, but it isn't talking or shouting. A rough,
(07:46):
rasping cry for help heaves its way up and out
of my mouth. Terrifying, terrifying. She goes on to talk
about what happens and how he does survive. Here's what
she said about love, loss, life, and not being able
to control everything.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It is learning that my love means risking loss. I think,
I think that is part of having children, and I
never realized that before I had children. I thought, well,
you have them, and they grow up and you teach
them and you hope for a good life, and you,
you know, teach them to be good or bad and
what's right and wrong. And then there's some things you
(08:25):
can't control. And I think that's what it's taught me,
is that I can't control everything, and there's points where
you have to try and let them go a little bit,
and you have to stretch that umbilical cord much further
than you wish to, and that is really confronting and
happens in different stages throughout parenting. For me, it's happening
now because I've got a thirteen year old son who
wants to go to the plaza on his own, and
(08:46):
they're always I'm always being stretched and tested as a mum,
and it's me trying to learn how to accept those
stretches and step into them without fear, which for me
sometimes takes some therapy. I'm going to be one hundred
percent honest with you.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I didn't think i'd say this, but I really want
to read the book now. She's got me cooked. This
idea that love means risking loss is so profound in
a totally different way watching one of our children navigate dating,
and that she's so scared to let herself actually open
(09:25):
her heart up because she might get hurt.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I'm guaranteed when you're a teenager.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, And it's the same kind of thing, right, You
can't you can't have one without the other. And the
idea that we are going to love so fiercely. We're
going to love so fiercely these little human beings that
come into our lives and at some point they're either
going to make decisions we don't want them to make,
(09:52):
or they're going to fly the coop and end up
on the other side of the world and we don't
get to see them every day, or tragedy hits and
they're not in our lives in the way we'd like
them to be. It's inhabitable that we will experience a
sense of loss if we're open to loving.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, it's a wonderfully human book. It's just a delightful read.
The book is called Mumming. It's by Victoria Vanstone. We
will link to it in the show notes. Just a
quick language warning for those who have sensitive is there's
a couple of moments to bleep out there. But what
a delightful book. I'm so glad that I love a
good memoir. And it really was a delightfully funny and
beautifully embracing memoir. Victoria Vanstone mumming. Details for the book
(10:34):
are in the show notes, and if you want to
hear the full conversation with Victoria, tune in on the weekend.
We're going to drop the full interview on Saturday. The
Happy Famili's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland for Bridge Media.
More information and resources to make your family happier, you'll
find it at happy families dot com. Dol A
I've just finished reading a book and we're going to
talk about that book today on the Happy Families Podcast.
The book is called Mumming. It's by award winning podcast
Victoria Vanstone, and we are going to get into a
couple of bits that really reached out and grabbed me
as I spoke with Victoria recently about her book, A
Year of Trying and Failing to be a Better Parent.
(00:27):
Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real parenting solutions every
day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. Sometimes being a
mum is just hard work. I would love to read
so much stuff to you from this book, but I'm
not going to. Instead, I'm going to ask Kylie, how
do you like being a mum? Not a trick question.
You looked at me like, didn't see that one coming.
I didn't forewarn you.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
You didn't know.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Been a trying couple of days in our home.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It has been a trying couple of days.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We are the parenting experts apparently, But so Mumming, A
Year of Trying and failing to be a bit of
parent by Victoria.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Vans Glad she only had a year of it. We're
coming on twenty five, and I'm oh, well.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Oh well all right. So what we do most Wednesdays
if I have great chats with people, is we play
a sniffet just a preview of how wonderful my interview was.
You and I talk about it, and then on Saturday
we played the whole interview for you. That's what we're
going to do today. Because Victoria was just a treat.
She was such a delight to talk to. I was
talking to her about the book, like why write a
book about being a mum, And She's really clear, like,
(01:30):
I don't really know who I am as a mum.
It's really hard to be and I've just got three kids.
So there's a lot going on in her home and
her husband, poor John. She calls him just poor John
because apparently she reckons she's a lot. And this is
what she said about walking out who she is as
she writes a book about being a mum.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I find that we're living in a world where imperfection
isn't accepted. And I've found that embracing my imperfections whilst
writing and whilst being a mum has actually kind of
been my superpower. As I've gone on along and learned
who I am as a mother, because I do think
it kind of takes some training to work out who
I want to be and who I actually am. And
(02:08):
I think there was a point very early in the
book where I was shouting too much, and it's a
trait that's carried on throughout my family. No, my mum
shouted at me, and now I shout at my children,
and I hear my mum's voice ricocheting around my house,
and I realized that I didn't want to be that person.
So this book is about that journey, about me trying
to become the mum I thought I wanted to be.
(02:29):
But actually it was so interesting writing it because I
was trying to do better, But the point kind of
got lost along the way because I didn't really get
that much better. But that was okay.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I love this idea of being able to embrace our shortcomings.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I think even if you're a shouting mum who swears
a little bit too much.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I think that there's so much perfectionism within society and
this need to have the perfect life, the perfect family,
and there's such a need to be seen to having
the perfect family, the perfect children, the perfect husband, the
perfect home. There's just so much perfectionism squashed into our lives.
(03:14):
And I love how real she is and just acknowledging
that once I'm able to embrace who I am, there's
actually real power in that, because then I get to
decide whether or not I like who I am, and
I can actually act from a place of power.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Identity is critically important. Victoria is remarkably self aware and
extremely honest. I would say that she is extremely human.
She's so human if I'm perfectly honest, I'm not into
reading these kinds of parenting memoirs. I just it takes
a lot to pull me in, and I read so
many parenting books.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Now. I was pretty shocked when I saw it on
your bedside.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, and yet she says things like I haven't always
been a shower. Before I had children, I had nothing
to shout about, so perfect or she says deep inside
me somewhere as the mother, I wanted to be the
one that Niels holds shoulders, looks at children in the
eyes and says softly, Now, Fred, we're on the same team.
We can figure this out together. Let's go on a
(04:12):
treasure hunt and find your mysterious lost shoe. I know
she's there, but like the shoe, I can't find her.
She's been replaced with the cheaper version, a worn out substitute.
It wasn't meant to be like this, Mumming. I mean,
that's so good. I just I'm getting goosebumps reading it.
The prologue. It all started by the side of a road.
She's six, she's in the UK. Her parents have taken
(04:35):
the family on a holiday to France where they go camping.
They fill up the car, they forget that the kids
aren't in the back, and they drive off and leave them,
and they are gone for an extended period of time,
like a long time, no mobile phones, nothing, And she
just says, I knew. I knew that, in spite of
my parents obviously imperfection, that they were going to come
back for me. I knew they'd come back. I'm getting
(04:55):
weepy just talking about it, because that's what parents do.
And reading this book, Mumming year of trying and failing
to be a better parent, it highlights that as long
as you're trying, you're not actually failing.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I remember a conversation I had with our family doctor
back when one of our children was diagnosed with the
most severe dust allergy that I've ever heard of, And
as a parent at the time, I was thinking, I
got to put her in a bubble, like, I don't
know how to do this. There is dust everywhere, literally,
like our entire environment. No matter how much I keep
(05:28):
this clean, she's surrounded by it. And he looked at
me and he just said, Kylie, He said, you will
do more damage to your child if you spend all
your time being so anxious about making sure she has
a dust free environment than just acknowledging that it's there
and you are going to do the best you can,
(05:48):
but at the end of the day, you can't remove it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
After the break, a heart stopping moment literally that almost
led to one of Victoria's children not being with us anymore.
She tells the story so sublimely well, and it is.
It's one of those earth shattering moments. It happened while
she was writing the book, so it went into the book.
I can't wait to share with you what she had
to say about that.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Okay, this one's pretty hard to listen to. But when
I was talking to Victoria Vanstone about her book Mumming
A year of trying and failing, to be a better parent.
She wrote this, and I'm just going to read like
a page page in a half. Then I want to
play to you what she had to say about it.
She says, June, We're in a camp of van on
a road trip in Perth when the worst day of
our lives unfolds. His lips are blue. He's not breathing.
(06:42):
After a picnic on a quiet beach, the kids scare
a lolly each as a treat. I thought nothing of it.
I hand them in the packet and strap them into
their car seats. I get in the front seat. John
starts the engine and we pull away. The next sound
is not a sound any mother should ever hear, the
sound of their child unable to get errand of their lungs.
I turn around to see Fred mouth wide open, gasping
for air. Stop the car. I owner my seat belt
(07:04):
and lurch into the back to un do his seat
belt and pull him upward into my arms. He's choking John.
I turn him upside down and hit his back. Do
a Heimlich maneuver, but nothing comes out. John pulls up
the handbrake and climbs into the back of the camp
of van. I'm thumping Fred's back, but his body is floppy,
hanging over my forearms, lifeless like a rag doll. He
can't breathe, it's not working. Give him to me. Our
eyes meet as I hand him over. We both know
(07:25):
our son is dying. Run out onto the street and
shout for help. Run go now. I watch my husband
fold Fred's limp little body over his lap and bang
his back. I don't look for my phone no time.
I'm moving towards the door. I can't reach the hand
or quick enough. I burst through the side door of
the van into the sunlight and find myself on an
empty street in the town of Geraldson. Noise is coming
from me, but it isn't talking or shouting. A rough,
(07:46):
rasping cry for help heaves its way up and out
of my mouth. Terrifying, terrifying. She goes on to talk
about what happens and how he does survive. Here's what
she said about love, loss, life, and not being able
to control everything.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It is learning that my love means risking loss. I think,
I think that is part of having children, and I
never realized that before I had children. I thought, well,
you have them, and they grow up and you teach
them and you hope for a good life, and you,
you know, teach them to be good or bad and
what's right and wrong. And then there's some things you
(08:25):
can't control. And I think that's what it's taught me,
is that I can't control everything, and there's points where
you have to try and let them go a little bit,
and you have to stretch that umbilical cord much further
than you wish to, and that is really confronting and
happens in different stages throughout parenting. For me, it's happening
now because I've got a thirteen year old son who
wants to go to the plaza on his own, and
(08:46):
they're always I'm always being stretched and tested as a mum,
and it's me trying to learn how to accept those
stretches and step into them without fear, which for me
sometimes takes some therapy. I'm going to be one hundred
percent honest with you.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I didn't think i'd say this, but I really want
to read the book now. She's got me cooked. This
idea that love means risking loss is so profound in
a totally different way watching one of our children navigate dating,
and that she's so scared to let herself actually open
(09:25):
her heart up because she might get hurt.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I'm guaranteed when you're a teenager.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, And it's the same kind of thing, right, You
can't you can't have one without the other. And the
idea that we are going to love so fiercely. We're
going to love so fiercely these little human beings that
come into our lives and at some point they're either
going to make decisions we don't want them to make,
(09:52):
or they're going to fly the coop and end up
on the other side of the world and we don't
get to see them every day, or tragedy hits and
they're not in our lives in the way we'd like
them to be. It's inhabitable that we will experience a
sense of loss if we're open to loving.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, it's a wonderfully human book. It's just a delightful read.
The book is called Mumming. It's by Victoria Vanstone. We
will link to it in the show notes. Just a
quick language warning for those who have sensitive is there's
a couple of moments to bleep out there. But what
a delightful book. I'm so glad that I love a
good memoir. And it really was a delightfully funny and
beautifully embracing memoir. Victoria Vanstone mumming. Details for the book
(10:34):
are in the show notes, and if you want to
hear the full conversation with Victoria, tune in on the weekend.
We're going to drop the full interview on Saturday. The
Happy Famili's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland for Bridge Media.
More information and resources to make your family happier, you'll
find it at happy families dot com. Dol A
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