You can rely on Helen Skelton to give an honest account of motherhood, the trials and tribulations of social media, and what school lunchboxes should or shouldn’t look like.
Spoiler alert, Helen believes what you feed your child is entirely your choice, and there’s definitely no correct way to keep your offspring energised.
In fact, the mother-of-three relishes all aspects of motherhood being just a little bit messy. Helen is a single mum to sons Ernie, aged 10, and Louis, eight, and daughter Elsie, three.
“Why do we put pressure on ourselves to present this picture-perfect image to the outside world when the reality of family busy life is that it’s chaotic?” she asked candidly, in conversation with The Independent.
“It’s busy, a bit rough around the edges, and that’s what life is,” she admits, honestly. So relatable is Helen’s family life, she was asked to take part in a Warburton’s campaign to highlight the pressure on parents to send their children to school with Instagrammable lunchboxes.
A survey found 60 per cent of parents feel pressured to make lunchboxes with a perfect appearance- and who has time for that?
It’s going to be eaten whether it resembles a stylish work of art or whether it looks like it got run over by the dustbin cart on the way to school – apart from the fruit that is, which nine times out of 10 will be returned, uneaten and ready to be simply re-added to the lunchbox the following day.
Helen agrees, saying, “I think everybody’s doing the best they can, and it’s just about taking the pressure off. Let’s be real – it’s not about having the perfectly presentable bento box with everything matching.”
“I can’t even find the flipping lid for tupperware boxes – I have to have zippy bags, because then I can’t lose the lid.” she adds, continuing, “As long as they’re eating some things that are relatively healthy, keeping them happy, food in their bellies, then that’s the goal, isn’t it?”
(Image credit: Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage via Getty)
Like many people, Helen also has a love/hate relationship with social media. Alongside the potential benefits, there are also many pitfalls when it comes to what you share and what you consume on social platforms.
Weighing in on the effect of social media for adding to parental doubt, Helen says, “Social media is one of those things, for me, you can’t live with it, you can’t live without it.
“But you definitely can’t just live by it,” she continues. However, presenting her very balanced view, she adds, “But equally, the world is literally at your fingertips when you’ve got social media. Lots of wonderful opportunities present, but you just can’t be a slave to it.”
The presenter asserts that it’s fine to pick out a few realistic ideas from social media, but urges people not to trick themselves into thinking there’s a certain way their lies should look based on what they find online.
She suggests that when her friends are overwhelmed by feeding their children, they turn to restaurants as an alternative to cooking – something Helen refers to as “carnage” when she tries to do it herself.
A lot of parents with multiple children in tow are likely nodding in agreement. There’s nothing worse than angry bystanders watching your children protest loudly about a menu, spill most of their food on the floor, and add a generally unwanted level of feral to the dining environment.
There’s also nothing better than when that phase is over and you’re able to re-join the land of eating out, with children that won’t send you to an early grave through sheer embarrassment.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Like parents up and down the county, the juggle of work, children, and trying to have some sort of social life, is very real. While work is particularly busy at the moment, with a return to Morning Live after a summer break and two other TV series about to air, Helen just tries to be as efficient as she can with the demands placed on her.
“I guess I’m feeling pretty lucky at the minute,” she says, adding, “my work is my social life, so I have really strict boundaries about when I’m able to work, and I make sure I’ve got more time with my kids than anything else.”
