CELEBRITY MUMS’ SECRETS
Jeanette and Angela’s magical motherhood moments
Jeanette Thomas’ motherhood motto is you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child and that is why she always encourages her teens to follow their passions. Whether it’s the environment or potentially following in her footsteps into the media world, the 48-yearold is always a cheerleader for her kids Charlie and Mia.
Youngest of the family
Mia, 17, joins Jeanette for the Weekly’s Mother’s Day photoshoot and chat, before going shopping for a dress for her upcoming Year 13 ball.
Looking almost like sisters, Jeanette admits that apart from desperately trying to get her children to clean their rooms, she has never told Mia off.
“It’s so odd, but it’s wonderful. It’s probably not quite normal,” she laughs. “And it’s not like we’re best friends and not a mother, it’s not that at all. But both my kids are very calm and easy-going.”
Jeanette, who hosts The Breeze’s breakfast show with Robert Rakete, says the hardest part of being a mum is the worry that she has felt since both her children were born. And those fears haven’t gone away, even though they’re now independent young adults.
Charlie, 19, spent nine months of last year working in one of the most remote locations in the world, Kure
Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, with only three others, as an environmentalist. During that time, Covid-19 swept the planet and they were only able to communicate via a weekly email.
“Given that I couldn’t speak to Charlie for the entire time, I simply had to trust that everything was going to be okay,” Jeanette says. “In the end, the emails sufficed and frankly, given how 2020 panned out, who wouldn’t want to be isolated on a tropical island as far away from Covid as humanly possible!”
Meanwhile, back in New Zealand, Mia was learning to drive, which Jeanette found just as difficult to handle!
“That first drive, she tootled off down the driveway with no one else in the car. It was like the first time she walked to school on her own, where you think that people are waiting to do terrible things.”
‘Even when it’s pouring and she’s drenched under an umbrella, she’s there’
When they’re not making TikTok dance videos together, which Jeanette insists will
“never see the light of day because I’m so terrible at them”, the mother and daughter bond over their passion for netball. Jeanette’s played the sport since she was a child and has passed that love onto Mia, who appreciates her mum’s support from the sidelines.
“Even when it’s pouring down with rain on the side of the netball court and she’s drenched under an umbrella, she is there,” Mia smiles. “I love that. She’s one of my favourite people in the world.”