Mom on strike: Calgary woman gets global kudos for not picking up after her kids

CALGARY — Mom Jessica Stilwell let the crusty dinner plates pile up in the kitchen and left the stinky laundry scattered on the floor to teach her messy kids a lesson.

After six days, she declared victory in her “mommy strike” and gained worldwide attention for her comical blog detailing the struggle.

“Could I ever have imagined this? Absolutely not. It’s very overwhelming,” Stilwell said over the phone Friday following an interview with TV talk show host Katie Couric in New York.

The 37- year- old social worker appeared earlier in the week on the Today show and got a high- five from host Matt Lauer for her parenting experiment. She’s off again next week to do The Jeff Probst Show in Los Angeles.

Her story has appeared in newspapers from New York to London. Her blog has attracted comments from other mothers as far away as France and Finland.

Stilwell said the strike worked for her family and she encourages other overwhelmed moms to launch their own boycotts.

“I think we all learned that despite us being a really busy family, we can’t let it slip. My girls have responsibilities.”

Stilwell’s blog — called “Crazy Working Mom: Diary of a mother on the brink of snapping!” — details how she got fed up with her three daughters and decided to go on strike Oct. 1.

She quickly let her husband, Dylan, in on the plan but they didn’t tell the girls — twins Olivia and Peyton, 12, and 10year- old Olivia.

The couple cleaned up each plate and fork they used for themselves but left the girls’ dirty dishes untouched. Stilwell wrote that the plates slowly stacked on top of each other like a gross game.

Mould and fruit flies gathered. One pet dog licked clean the dishes that made it into the dishwasher when the door was left open.

“Which begs me to question,” wrote Stilwell, “if the children will think it’s actually clean and proceed to use the dishes in the morning?”