Mom's Post About The 'Absolute Worst Parts Of Motherhood' Goes Viral

The Barefoot Mum Kelli Bannister’s candid photo with her sick child goes viral

Taking care of sick kids is the worst, especially when everyone catches the same bug at the same time. But as one mom found out, even the grossest parenting moments can be beautiful, if you happen to catch them at just the right moment.

Kelli Bannister, aka The Barefoot Mum has three children. Her oldest two have been fighting the flu for the past few weeks. If that wasn’t hard enough already, a few days ago Bannister’s toddler, 20 month old Summer, also got sick. Summer was suffering from a coughing fit when she did what sick toddlers do best — got sick all over her mom. Figuring it was an easy way to clean them both off quickly, mom plopped down in the shower with her daughter and hung out there until the baby calmed down.

We’ve all had those moments, when your hair is dirty, you’re covered in puke, you feel disgusting and it seems like parenting is so much harder than you thought it would be. While mom and baby were camped out in the shower, Bannister’s 5-year-old son, Taj, came in to tell her she had a message on her phone. He snapped some pictures of the two of them before leaving his mom’s phone on the bathroom counter.

She forgot all about the photos until later on when the baby had finally passed out on the couch, but once she remembered and looked at what Taj had captured, Bannister was shocked.

“When I saw this particular image I was actually quite taken back at how real and raw it was,” she told the Daily Mail. She posted the photo on Facebook, saying,” I was debating whether or not to post this, but this is real, raw, and one of the absolute worst parts of Motherhood that at some stage, we will all go through!! ”

Noting that nothing prepares you for how hard it is to take care for a sick baby, and how you wish you could go though their illness for them she said, “I haven’t slept in days and am physically & mentally exhausted myself, but as all Mums do, we keep going!” Bannister shared the picture in hopes that it could help another mom who’s struggling with a particularly rough day, telling the Daily Mail, “… [I]f this could help at least one other gorgeous parent to get through their day, then it’s absolutely worth it!” Thus far the image has over 14,000 reactions on Facebook.

Bannister herself is a photographer, so it’s likely that her little boy has inherited her great eye, and that’s partially what lead to him capturing such a moving shot. Stellar photog skills aside, it really is a moving image. We all know what it’s like to have our greasy hair in a messy bun and to feel like you are utterly failing at parenting because you don’t know what to do to make your child feel better. But this picture proves that no matter how we feel on the inside other people will only see a mom trying her best.

In other words, hang in there moms. We’ve got this.