The good, the bad and the mothers
They don’t always know best, writes Angela Barnett
Nobody warns you that when you become a mother, it is not only the children being observed in the playground. Whether you like it or not, suddenly you’re part of an incessant competition to be a “good mother”. To raise perfect children, pack the perfect lunchboxes, live in the right suburb for the perfect school, have the perfect partner — and never swear at your offspring.
Good mothers don’t get drunk, speak their minds, lose their husbands or sleep around.
So it’s quite refreshing for the antithesis to come along in the form of a show, Bad Mothers.
Written by Rachel Lang and Gavin Strawhan (Outrageous Fortune), there’s plenty of swearing, too many glasses of wine and losing of husbands in the series, commissioned by Australia’s Channel 9.
Shalom Brune-Franklin plays such a bad mother you don’t even see her children on screen in the first episode. Bindy, the teenage mother, has childcare nailed, in the form of an invisible mother. As the youngest in the group, her character is a badass who wouldn’t turn down a joint and a drink at lunchtime to get through a bad day.
“She’s really a child raising a child,” says Brune-Franklin, on the phone from London.
“The show touches on social media and looking at other people’s images of having children and how easy it looks online.” Until you have them.
The Australian (UK-born) actor, picked as a “rising star” by Gary Oldman, whose recent credits include Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok, the BBC’s Our Girl and Channel 4 series The State,
describes the dynamics of the good and bad mothers.
“The Bedford mothers [the rich bitches] always put on their school meetings at such a time that if you work you can’t attend, which moves us out of the loop. We’re the bad mothers because we’re not mothering all the time. We’re looked down on and at the receiving end of back-handed compliments.”
Like many mothers, the bad mothers are juggling work and parenting, going through custody battles and, in Bindy’s case, being suspected of having affairs. As the hot personal trainer who works closely with a lot of the husbands in her spray-on activewear, she is accused of breaking up marriages.
“Bindy starts off being spiteful,” says BruneFranklin. “But she’s kind of ignorant in her world and just speaks her mind. This series sets you
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Shows that make you laugh and cry are hard to come by.
Shalom Brune-Franklin
up to think you’re going one way and shows you another. You might end up hating who you loved at the end, and vice versa.”
The series begins with a husband having an affair and the wife catching him with all the usual tricks — spare phone, lunchtime rendezvous, secret hotels — but who he’s seeing is not so easy to guess. Being a good drama, there’s a dash of murder thrown in too, because who hasn’t joked about knocking off the spouse? Especially once children come along and just getting along becomes a simple goal.
Not being a mother herself, 24-year-old BruneFranklin had to draw on experience from her own mother to get into character. “Bindy had her child when she was 17 and my mum gave birth to me at the same age.”
Brune-Franklin’s mother survived competition in the playground by developing a thick skin. “She’s an amazing person. She was the mum being judged for being so young.
“I always thought we were the weird ones because of her age but she never cared and did her own thing.”
Bad Mothers isn’t actually about so-called bad mothering — lunchboxes made — tick; school pick-ups achieved — tick; — rather it’s about the person beyond the mother. As one particularly “perfect” Bedford mother, Charlotte, played by Melissa George, says, “You can’t always put kids first. You have to have a life beyond mothering because they’ll be gone one day. Then what?”
Asking Brune-Franklin if it’s rather predictable that the perfectly groomed rich mothers are the bitches in the show, she says it gets turned around. “There are new members that join the bad mothers club, which changes the dynamic. The core of the bad mothers is that they care for one another and try their best.”
Preparing for the role, she had to borrow other people’s kids, including babysitting her halfsister.
“My dad and partner were like, ‘Take her and practise.”’ Looking after the 17-month-old taught Brune-Franklin toddlers are not easy. One day her little sister wouldn’t stop crying so BruneFranklin left her in a room by herself. “I thought, ‘I’m such a bad person’ but she calmed down and then she was fine and we watched Peppa Pig. When her mother got home Brune-Franklin told her what happened and she said, ‘That’s okay, sometimes the adult needs time out’.” Brune-Franklin wanted the bad mother part as soon as she read the script. “I put a tape down but didn’t hear anything for ages and moved on. Then I got a call and they offered me the role. I couldn’t believe it.”
Lust, affairs, suspicion and a murder thrown in, Bad Mothers straddles thriller and drama but Brune-Franklin says it also has comedy . “When we were shooting it felt quite comedic. It’s a drama with a pinch of laughter. And hopefully, it makes you think. “And maybe it makes you cry. Shows that make you laugh and cry are hard to come by.”
So are shows that show the real grit of mothering.