Karl Stefanovic‘s estranged wife has hit back at a poor-form opinion piece that criticises her for giving up a successful career in journalism to stay-at-home with the couple’s three kids.
News Corp columnist Angela Mollard, of news.com.au, wrote a piece called ‘This Is The Reason Women Shouldn’t Give Up Their Day Jobs’ in response to Cassandra Thorburn‘s Facebook vent about Karl’s Today Show overtaking Channel 7’s Sunrise in the ratings race for the first time in over a decade.
After news of the ratings win broke, Thorburn rightly celebrated her own contributions to the show – and the toll his career had on their 12-year marriage and family, in her first public reference to their separation.
“This took a huge toll on my family and I, and I’m congratulating myself today for all the effort that went into making that (the ratings) happen. The suggestions, the story ideas, the constant counselling of questions for years. I’m giving myself a pat on the back tonight, as I know many people will also know how much effort I put into it.”
Mollard used her comments as the basis for a diatribe on why Thorburn was apparently foolhardy to give up a promising career at the ABC to raise their children, Jackson, 16, Ava, 11, and River, 10.
“Stefanovic and Thorburn are a case study on why women have to hold on to their (paid) jobs,” she wrote. “Why? Because marriages are more fragile than ever, because women need to retain their financial agency (and build their superannuation), because it’s bloody hard to retain love, support and mutual respect when one person is paid for their efforts and the other isn’t. Yes, it can work but so often under the surface there’s rumblings and resentment.”
She went so far as to hypothesise that, if Thorburn hadn’t given up her day job to be a stay-at-home mum, their marriage may have survived.
“If they’d made different calls — if she’d insisted on keeping her job part-time, if he’d negotiated a contract that gave him longer holidays out of ratings periods or Fridays off — then maybe they’d have maintained the mutual respect that’s so essential to a partnership.”
Thorburn is understandably pissed at the interference in her personal life, particularly that another woman – herself a mum – would shame her life choices, penning an open letter-cum-clap back for POPSUGAR Australia.
She wrote:
“It’s such a shame that the biggest critics of women seem to be other women. Such a damn shame. If you did read the article I referenced earlier, I can guarantee you I did not write the Facebook post after drinking a bottle of red, as was suggested. That was my first glass in the photo. I’d just poured it, to celebrate something that played a huge role in my life for so long.“There was no malice intended and I certainly didn’t expect to be picked to pieces for it. The media showed no interest in this stay-at-home mum for 11 years, so kicking me now when I’m going through one of the hardest times of mine and my children’s lives seems very cruel indeed. When will judgements from other women stop?”
Karl has always been forthcoming about the sacrifice Thorburn made to allow his career to take centre stage, saying “she gave up a promising career… and I’m forever thankful and tremendously appreciative of that,” he’s said.
The way it should be.
Source: POPSUGAR Australia.
Photo: Scott Barbour / Getty.
