A mum fed-up with sickeningly sweet parent blogs has become an internet phenomenon after launching a website featuring hilarious snaps of children – at their WORST.
Emma Conway, 37, started posting pictures of her four-year-old daughter Erin and two-year-old son Ethan having tantrums, making terrible models and messing up the family home.
The down-to-earth mum, from Birmingham, also wrote brutally honest posts about the realities of bringing up children and the chaos of running a family home.
Incredibly, just months after starting her blog, thousands of other parents were inspired to send her pictures of their own little terrors.
Her blog, called brummymummyof2 has become so successful she even has her own
YouTube channel and is followed by more than 12,000 people across the world.
Emma, a part-time RE teacher, said: “I started the blog because I love beautiful shots on Instagram and Pinterest but felt they showed a sometimes unrealistic side of parenting.
“I adore perusing people’s pictures of glorious meals, beautiful children and quaint seaside views but life isn’t always like that.
“Sometimes our kids look snotty, meals look bloody horrible and the only view we have is our children fighting in front of Peppa Pig on the TV.
“Everybody love’s their kids but lots of blogs only show them at their best.”
“I wanted to show kids as they really are, including the tantrums and the mess and the rubbish models they make. It was a bit of fun but has snowballed into something amazing.”
She has now launched a #WickedWednesdays campaign encouraging parents to send in humorous snaps of their kids acting out.
She added: “I created the ‘Wicked Wednesday’ idea to try to balance things out and show people that kids, as well as being creative and amazing and beautiful, can also be hard work, badly behaved and incredibly messy.
“It could be a hilarious family selfie where not a single person is looking at the camera of a picture of a huge pile of washing you’re never going to get finished – something to make us all smile so we can join in these ‘magic’ moments of being parents.
“Basically, what I’m saying to people is I’m crap, here’s why and if you’re crap send me your pictures and we can have a laugh and be crap together.
“I’ve shared pictures of my son having tantrums over random things like me buying him an ice cream, or in Thomas Land when he doesn’t get the seat he wants, or when I wouldn’t let him use the electric whisk.”
Emma started blogging as a hobby in 2013 shortly after the birth of Ethan but has followers from around the world.
She added: “I started blogging as I found being a mum quite isolating and I was used to being a busy head of a department.
“I like to write about the good bits but also enjoy moaning about the hard bits. Through it I have had some amazing experiences, including being interviewed on CNN for a story I wrote about World Cup stickers.”
Emma, who is married to project quantity surveyor Stephen, 33, has been nominated for a Brilliance in Blogging Award.
She will find out if she has won when she attends a glitzy award ceremony in London on June 19
