Arylene Westlake-Jennings: Why Arj Barker was right to tell mum to go home ... for her own sanity

The fussing. The wriggling. The refusal to latch. It was exasperating, in all honesty, to watch new mum Trish Faranda as she tried to hold a conversation with TV presenters from one news channel to another. I furrowed my brow as baby Clara refused to latch for a third time as Trish tried to soothe her by breastfeeding — and strained to hear mum over bub’s squawks — as the mum-of-three relayed how she was unceremoniously booted from comedian Arj Barker’s stand-up gig in Melbourne on Saturday night because Clara’s vocal antics were disrupting his performance. Trish says she wasn’t so much upset about being asked to leave but how Barker has asked the crowd if she should be allowed to stay. Her TV interviews did little to progress her cause. Even though if I were in her shoes, I would have left bub at home — when I had my newborns, breast pumps and my husband were handy for that — I was torn between feeling for her and feeling like she should have gone about it better. Whether Clara was teething, going through “witching hour” (anyone else been thorough that?), or simply not in the mood, it doesn’t matter. Trish was trying her best. Mums often don’t want to leave our babies or children when they’re in a fussy period or sick, and we cancel appointments, work from home trying to juggle emails and upset children, and put aside never-ending lists of to-dos to sit under a blanket and watch Bluey re-runs with them. But I’m also proposing this was an opportune time for Trish to give herself a break. I’ve said it before: all parents bloody deserve one. And how marvellous would it have been to have watched the comedy routine unperturbed and gone home to a (hopefully sleeping) bubba after it?