Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Do you glam up for the school run?

I read the most bizarre piece of research the other day.

Mums vote their looks as their top priority in the morning.

An astonishing 90% of 1022 Irish Mums said that styling their hair and make-up was the first thing they did in the morning, ahead of sorting out their kids.

This really surprised me as it's the total opposite of my life and priorities.


This begs the question: how old are their kids? And what time do they need to get up before their kids to sort themselves out first? No matter how hard I try with that good intention, I just can’t. My kids always wake earlier than me (even before alarms), and we love to have a morning cuddle in bed whilst we’re all sleepy eyed.

I’ll let you into a secret - I’m lucky if I’ve even brushed my hair by lunchtime. If I ever drop the kids to school you’ll see me wearing a peaked hat because I’ve had no time to even look in the mirror or brush my hair. I’ve settled on showering every other day (mainly in the evenings) and I gave up on make-up a long time ago.

So, where do these women who can’t bear to leave the house without glamming up live I wonder? Are they the infamous glammy inner-city mums who drive Range Rovers and wear heels on the school run? Or do they have nannies to help them? I rarely see those types around here, in our rural east Cork village.





The second priority for the survey mums is getting breakfast ready for themselves and their children, closely followed by 78% who must have a shower.


Shower? Who has time for a shower every morning?!

Let me tell you my priority: getting my 3 kids up, dressed and eating breakfast (no they won't do any of this by themselves yet) whilst making lunchboxes, logging onto work and trying to make myself a coffee to wake up. The coffee is the only thing I get to do for myself – and then maybe brush my teeth and get dressed once things have calmed down a bit. 

I always think it’s something of a miracle that my kids make it to school in clean clothes, bags packed with the right books and lunchboxes and water for school, and their hair is brushed. This morning they even brushed their teeth – well 2 out of 3, which was a big achievement!

So I guess I’m a SlummyMummy rather than a GlammyMummy, but then I’d say most of my friends with young kids are the same. I wonder…. 


When you have young kids, you tend to put their needs first ahead of your own. Who cares what other people think? Looks tend to become very unimportant, unless you’re trying to project an image to the world.

One of the quotes from a mum in the survey suggested that it was an inner-confidence thing: “The thought of leaving the house without any make up on and with my hair looking like a birds nest leaves me feeling embarrassed. Some women are confident enough to do it – I’m not!”

Take a look at these results and let me know what you think, what matters more to you in the morning: how you look or looking after your kids?

Poll published by www.promocodes.ie/irish-mums-morning-priority

Hair and make up             90%

Kids breakfast                  82%

Shower                            78%

Cup of coffee / tea            68%

Packed lunches                 52%

Kids ready for school         50%

Check social media/emails  24%

Washing on                       20%

Tidying up after breakfast  14%

Exercise                            6%

It’s great to hear how the other half live isn’t it? Maybe one day I can dream of my kids doing more for themselves in the morning whilst I get to splash on a bit of moisturiser or have a shower.

For me, this survey really shows me the big eye-opening divide. What do you think? Is hair and make-up important to you too?

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