Barnardos Australia ends Mother of the Year award after 25 years
8 February 2021 at 5:50 pm
But the charity has received criticism that worthy recipients will miss out
Barnardos Australia has announced it will no longer run its longstanding Mother of the Year Award in a bid to better reflect and support diverse families in the community.
The family support and foster care organisation published a statement on Monday that said it works with people of all demographics – including single parents, foster parents, same sex couples, and relatives caring for the children of family members – not just mothers, to support vulnerable children and families in Australia.
“Barnardos’ priority is to assist the most vulnerable children and families in our community with all our available resources,” the statement said.
“With this in mind, we have made the decision to bring the Barnardos Mother of the Year Awards to an end.”
For the past 25 years the charity has run the national award that acknowledges the role mothering plays in keeping children safe and helping them reach their potential.
The organisation thanked and acknowledged all the mums in the community the award had celebrated in previous years.
But some were not so supportive of the decision to scrap the award. David “Kochie” Koch, the host of morning breakfast show Sunrise, said that ditching the award meant “worthy” and “inspirational” mums would no longer get the recognition they deserved.
While Ben Fordham, a 2GB radio presenter and previous award host, said that “political correctness had played a part” in the decision to scrap the awards.
The organisation declined to provide further comments on why the award was cancelled, and has not said whether or not the awards will be replaced with another event in the future.
I don’t think there hasn’t been a mother yet who has won the award who doesn’t foster children. Most are white women, in their 50’s and 60’s. My children and I used to laugh, as they think I am the best mother, that I would have needed to foster to ever be considered. I said goodbye to a reward that does nothing for ‘mothers’.
The award was given to women in that demographic because they are the ones that are going above and beyond to raise kids that are not even their own, kids that nobody else cares about. My kid thinks I’m the worlds best mum too, but I’m not signing up to raise other peoples kids, so therefore I don’t deserve that award. As a mother I would think you might understand what a huge sacrifice it is to decide to use your life to raise kids who need a home. This ‘cancel culture’ is growing like a cancer and destroying society.
That’s a shame, there are so many great Mothers out there and we should be doing what we can to celebrate the crucial role Mums play in the lives of their children.
It is ridiculous for a charity to give in to a minority view. The huge majority of people would see mothers as important in our society. Are non mothers now a majority? This politically correct view is shameful.