I crossed over to the dark side and bought a mum van, people mover, vangina, cereal box on wheels, whatever it is you call this desirable motor vehicle. For me, there wasn’t a lot of “cool” to sacrifice so the decision was easy. But I am going to help you to decide whether it is worth the sacrifice. Be warned, if you do go forth with this purchase your vocabulary will have an influx of words like efficient, practical, versatile, sexy.

PRO’S

1) If you have joined the mum club of spawning more than two kids, then a mum van is looking like quite a good option. Yes those tiny humans can fit into a normal car but what about all the other crap you have to lug around? You can take your three kids shopping, a double mountain buggy, get a fortnights shopping and buy up large at k mart including the rug, the new arm chair and an array of new decor for your “transylvanian style” house. No sweat.

2) Your vehicle is going to be filled from floor to ceiling with crackers, raisins, clothing and toys whether you drive a van or a normal car so why not have one that you can climb into with ease to vacuum and clean.

3)So much room for activities. If you ever get stuck on the side of the road with all the sprogs in the car just turn those seats around baby and you have got yourself a little whare.

4) Breastfeeding and nappy changing is super easy when out and about. No need to have an aggressive confrontation with a creepy old man who finds breastfeeding to be “disgusting” you can flip him the bird in the comfort of your beautiful mum van.

5) You can seat your kids further back than in a normal car. This is super great when you can’t be bothered listening to them whine and fight with each other. It also doubles as an anti-smacking regulator because if they really get on your last nerve you can’t reach them anyway. I generally just look at them with that special kind of crazy in my eyes that is only reserved for moments when mum has gone from zero to psycho mum. Don’t act like you don’t remember that look from Mum, the “Oh shit I have pushed mum too far” moment.

6) Now I don’t know if this is factual or not because oddly I can’t access statistics on this, but I tend to think that hot messes in mum vans get pulled over less. When my mum was a young mum she got let off something like a bad ass and thought it would be lovely time to hug the policeman mid let-down giving him complimentary milk boob imprints. Brill. So the moral to the story is that the Po-Po going to be telling you to go-go, because you a hot hot mess and you need to get home to get the roast on in time.

7) You have already sold your soul when buying a mum van so you really don’t give no fucks what people think. You just embrace that mum van and all its capabilities. This includes turning up to kindy drop off like a bad ass with your remote sliding doors like something out of ‘Men in Black’. Your kids think you are cool so that’s all that matters.

CON’S

1) Because you have “spare seats” in your mum van you can be the target for people to offload their little pleasures. This is when you specify that it does not say “school run” on the front of your van. Or you could breed until the van is full so you can put out your no vacancy sign.

2) Sometimes it is hard to distribute supplies to the back seat of the mum van when travelling. The having to pull over thing is a real pain at times. I am looking into a bit of a pulley system here so watch this space haha.

3)Your husband drives around real low in his seat. I’m not talking re-living his boy racer days low. I’m talking he fears that his testosterone is being sucked out with every kilometre. This is when you remind him that it is effective, practical, versatile, and sexy.

This has been weighing on my mind for some time and my main worry was not to offend. I am now of the opinion that in this day and age I could say “My favourite colour is blue” and i could offend someone somewhere. People will read into anything and interpret things differently so just keep in my mind my aim is to make other mums feel less lonely in this issue not offend anyone who fits into any other category possible.

My issue is with the growing trend of the “Super-mum”. I have on many occasions been called a super mum and in this context I have taken this as a lovely compliment. However, over time I have started to look at this view of myself as a curse.

I think that the general image of a Super mum is someone that juggles around 450,000 things at once, probably earns an income, can still parent to a moderately high standard, doesn’t stab their husband and still has time for themselves. All jokes aside, the role is fairly hard to live up to. When you are labelled as a Super mum what I find is that it is actually quite isolating. I find its actually a bit of a cop out. I find it denies mums of the opportunity to NOT live up to these incredibly high standards. Chances are this mum already has incredibly high standards of herself or she wouldn’t be classed as a Super mum.

For a lot of “Super mums” they have little support or help from those around them. For a lot of “Super mums” they look like they have it together all the time because they do not have an alternative. What is the alternative to coping? There isn’t always a village to support these mums so they are “Super mums” because they have to be.

Like the saying goes, “If you want something done, ask a busy person”. Well I call bullshit on that, and we are sick of being the bloody work horses! Every Mum deserves their moments of weakness, this is one of the hardest times of our lives.

When we  call mums “super mums” we need to be aware that without realising it we are adding more pressure for them to maintain this view or illusion. What we are doing is denying them of the right to be just a mum and sometimes not have it together.

By no means am I perfect. I catch myself calling my friends that are acing motherhood super mums. But after experiencing a time when I wasn’t coping with the huge weight on my shoulders I asked myself why I was so terrified to actually ask for any help or support? The answer was the embarrassment that I should be able to cope and that I should be able to do this on my own, all the time, perfectly.

I don’t know the answer, I would love to know if you do. But all I can suggest is to ask the real questions. Offer your friends and family the help even if they won’t accept it, you never know when they will take you up on the offer. Make a meal for a “Super mum” who looks like she has it all together, because you don’t know if she is at the end of her tether. Lastly, mums need to be there to support each and every mum, and make it OK to not be perfect all the time. The “helper” sometimes needs to be helped. There should be no classes or cliques or categories in motherhood. Motherhood is not a race or a competition, or a perfect looking instagram account. So have each other’s back mumma’s!