Could a mother go off on a 28-year walk and still be called a hero? I doubt it |
BRITISH MAN AND father-of-one Karl Bushby recently returned to the UK after an epic 28-year walk around the world, setting records and receiving a hero’s welcome. He is the first person to walk around the globe in one unbroken journey, covering over 50,000km. On his odyssey, he swam the Caspian Sea, crossed the Bering Strait and trekked through a host of treacherous jungles, searing deserts and many dodgy situations.
While it all sounds great to some (or just plain selfish) on paper, the reality is that Bushby walked out the door when his son, Adam, was just eight years old, leaving his ex-wife to handle the parenting. The idea that I or any other mother I know could simply walk out the door for even a weekend without huge amounts of prep, stress, worry and guilt, let alone swan off for 28 years, is so far past comical I don’t think there’s a phrase to truly encapsulate it.
28 years later, Bushby’s son Adam is now a 36-year-old grown man with a 12-year-old daughter of his own, a granddaughter the adventurer has never met. I can’t help feeling that if a mother did anything even close to ditto, she would be less likely to come home being celebrated as a record-breaking hero with crowds cheering and more likely to be branded as a bad mother.
You think not? Just look at women in the public eye like Sophie Turner, Jess Redden, Rochelle Humes and Jacquleine Jossa to name but a few, who have been pilloried on the internet for having a child free night away, a holiday with friends or for working........