Meshel Laurie says her 'inner bogan came out' when her son was lunchbox shamed for a snack.

Meshel Laurie has a self-proclaimed “inner bogan”.

She’s also a comedian, author, television host and podcast presenter, but recently, when faced with her child being bullied at school, she says she let her “inner bogan” take over.

The 42-year-old mum of primary-school aged twins, Dali and Louis, earlier this month posted on Twitter about a situation that brought out her fighting instincts. In a thread, she explained that her son had taken a home made chocolate chip cookie to school, and another kid had decided to bully him about what he thought was an unhealthy snack.

Reflecting on how much school has changed from the times when kids didn’t comment on each other’s recess options, Laurie admitted that she very much wanted to tell her son that he should respond to such comments in the future with a simple, but effective, “F***k off.”

Despite her natural maternal instinct to aggressively defend her offspring, Laurie wrote, “I know I can’t, though…It’s hard being a bogan parent sometimes.”

My son was bullied at school today because he had an unhealthy snack. (Homemade chic chip cookie. 1.)
School. Has. Changed.

— Meshel Laurie (@Meshel_Laurie) June 4, 2018

Speaking to Mamamia‘s parenting podcast This Glorious Mess, Laurie laughed about her tweet; “I know I tweeted that I wanted to tell my my son to tell the kid to ‘f off’, but in reality, I did tell my kid to tell the other kid to ‘f off’.”

Explaining that whilst she’s impressed with most modern schools’ conciliatory and measured  approach to bullying, when it happened to her child, “My bogan colours came out, and my ’80s background did too.”

Laurie said what she was taught about how to handle bullies was very different to current attitudes.

“I was taught to stand up to bullies fast, early and hard – that’s the way they were going to back down. And in my experience, it worked.”

Knowing that the situation had been an ongoing one for her son made Laurie even more defensive on this occasion.

“It’s not like my kids have feral lunch boxes, but apparently what was happening was, my kids have lunch orders every day.” And that was apparently a problem.

The main reason why Laurie had decided to no longer send home made lunches is one that many parents will be able to relate to: the lovingly-made lunches – the specially-requested chicken sandwiches – were returning home uneaten every day.

“It was heartbreaking to see that sandwich come back to me,” Laurie joked.

So Laurie did what a lot of parents do – decided that healthy options at the school canteen would be more than good enough. But trouble came when one child in particular at school had noticed this routine, and commented on it repeatedly.

“He was like, ‘your mum needs to make you some sandwiches, man’, ” Laurie said. On the most recent time the child said this to Laurie’s son, she’d had enough, and wanted to send him her own message.

“When ‘Lunchbox Larry’ pipes up tomorrow, I want you tell him from me that he can get ‘effed. And if he has an issue with your lunch, he can come and see me, I’m there at 3:15pm every day.”

The glitch in that plan, Laurie said, is that her son refused to pass on the blunt message, telling her, “that is not how we handle it, Mum.”

And so, reluctantly (because, in her hilarious words, “snitches get stitches”), Laurie spoke to the teacher, and a round-table discussion to resolve the situation. Whilst the tactic seem to have worked, Laurie said it did go against her natural style of parenting.

“You don’t have to scratch the surface far to find my bogan parenting instincts. I’m very hands-off, whatever man. Just do your best. As long as you can read and write, as long as you have enough maths to work out a credit card, you’ll be right.”

Laurie’s approach to the incident is very characteristic of her refreshingly honest attitude to most things. For example, she posted on Instagram a screenshot of her FaceTime conversation with her eight-year-old daughter, Dali, on Sunday night. Dali looks distressed in the photo, and Laurie explained why in the caption.

Working mother reality. Phoning home to say goodnight and the children in tears, berating me for not being there. ☹️???????? Thanks guys. Remember this when you’re in Bali in a couple of weeks. Where you think that holiday cash comes from????? ????

A post shared by Meshel Laurie (@meshel_laurie) on Jun 17, 2018 at 3:52am PDT

“Working mother reality,” Laurie wrote. “Phoning home to say goodnight and the children in tears, berating me for not being there.”

Sarcastically, Laurie added, “Thanks guys. Remember this when you’re in Bali in a couple of weeks. Where you think that holiday cash comes from??????”

The post was met with support from hundreds of comments.

“I freaking love you for posting this. Makes me feel normal for a change!!! This shit is real every day stuff for a lot of us!,” said another.

But while many of Laurie’s fan could relate with their own working mum struggles, and reassured her that she was doing the right thing by working to provide for her family, there were a handful of commenters who judged Laurie harshly for not being there for her daughter. She eventually defended herself with her defining fighting spirit:

“And I really HATE IT WHEN WOMEN JUDGE ME FOR POSTING THIS!!! PLEASE GO AWAY WITH YOU SUPERIORITY COMPLEX!”

Because, as Laurie made clear, nobody has time for that.