Today FM Newsreader Susan Keogh got a tweet last Tuesday from a man who said:
“If you miss your kid so much while you’re at work, why don’t you just give up your job”
Susan says that she would often tweet about the weekend’s going too fast with the odd picture of her four and a half year old daughter Faith, and despite blocking the Twitter follower straight away as the tweet ‘hit her where it really hurts’, her anger about the post saw her write a moving rebuke which has since gone viral.
She joined Anton on the Anton Savage Show on Tuesday to talk about what happened.
Having been consumed by the tweet she told Anton she wrote the letter as a cathartic way of getting it of off her chest. She had no intention of getting it out there, but on Friday impulsively decided to tweet it the next day to put an end to it in her head.
She never expected the response that she got. The letter has been shared on numerous news sites and garnered a huge response, shared worldwide.
Like most working mums, Susan says she does struggle every day with her decision to be a working mother but says that her job is part of her identity and she loves it. For this reason, it makes her a happier mother, despite there being a confliction, some guilt and the separation anxiety that all parents go through. She misses time with her daughter but spends as much time away from the studio with her as possible.
She says she wants to give her daughter choices and an understanding of them (see her full response below). She says it it is something that happened and does make people think about giving too much away on social media. She says making the comments didn't sit well in some ways, but the response shows that loads of people do worry about going out to work, and it is all about choice after all...
"All I wanted to say was that woman should have a choice, and be able to make a choice and not be judged for it."
Not surprisingly, Susan and Anton's interview saw loads of listeners react. At the end of the Podcast, Anton reads out some of those.
Here's Susan's response to the troll that went viral
