Dear Sonia, please stop playing the ‘mummy card’

Well before Sonia Kruger defended her “extreme” response to the Nice terror attacks “as a mum,” my barren blood has been on the boil.

Part of what I call the ‘poor Jen-eration’ — women like Jennifer Aniston who are only valued for the contents of their womb and not their life accomplishments — I’ve had enough of the public discourse which constantly diminishes my opinion and dehumanises my response to the world around us simply because of my maternal status, or lack thereof.

Those in the mothers’ club or parenting pack are quite often not even conscious of it.

But for someone like Sonia, who suffered years of painful infertility and insensitive probing about her childlessness before the miraculous birth of her darling daughter Maggie, let me tell you, it is one of the lowest blows.

Each story about a wounded child, sick infant, or worse the death of young innocents, seems to start the same these days: “only a mother would understand,” or “it’s every parent’s nightmare,” as if somehow giving birth comes with a mortgage on compassion, empathy, basic human kindness.

When Sonia justified her fearful call to ban Muslim immigration to Australia in the wake of the Bastille Day tragedy, she did so playing the mummy card; as if it made her reaction to those 84 deaths and hundreds injured more entitled, more intense because she has a child.

As someone who led celebrations when she welcomed baby Maggie on the front page of our papers, and delighted in the day her beloved bubba turned one (as I do most babies who come into my orbit, to be honest), there can be no question I have and still share in the joy mature motherhood has brought this wonderful, vivacious and talented TV star.

But for that reason, I thought her decision to immunise herself from public criticism “as a mum” was clumsy at best. And at worst, completely devoid of the compassion she and many others now appear to think comes with the parental territory.

To be clear, this is not about shaming mothers, because some fathers do it too. Sonia’s Nine stablemate, Karl Stefanovic did it during every live cross from the French Riviera on Today, tugging at the heart strings of “every parent” watching.

But as a non-mother, one of those not lucky enough to have had children, can I suggest that if your life before you had kids was so self-absorbed you had little concern for others, then you’re a selfish moron who deserves our condemnation.

We’re in the communication industry and we all know words are weapons, chosen carefully for maximum emotional effect.

To continue this narrative where parents alone are entitled to an opinion, to express emotion, react with anguish and devastation at the loss of anyone’s child, including yours, is divisive, dangerous and defies logic.

Shifting the discussion to realise we are one human race, not divided by biology, would also go a long way in confronting all that is tearing us apart right now.

Holly Byrnes is News Corp Australia’s national TV writer.