<div><main data-testid="main-content" id="main-content"><article><header></header><div data-component="image-block"><figure><p><span><picture><source srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg.webp 240w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg.webp 320w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg.webp 480w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg.webp 624w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg.webp 800w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg.webp 976w" type="image/webp"></source><img alt="Jess with her five children and two dogs" height="549" loading="eager" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg 240w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg 320w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg 480w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg 624w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg 800w, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/7468/production/_132500892_jess2.jpg 976w" width="976"></img></picture></span><span role="text"><span>Image source, </span>Family photo</span></p><figcaption><span>Image caption, </span><p>Jess wanted to share the reality of family life after feeling bombarded with perfect pictures on social media</p></figcaption></figure></div><div data-component="text-block"><p><b>Have you ever seen a photo of someone else's family on social media that left you feeling inadequate? </b></p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Tired of seeing picture-perfect portrayals of motherhood, mum-of-five Jessica Hymus-Gant started sharing not just the good but also the "bad and the really grotty" mayhem that is her everyday family life.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>"We are bombarded on a daily basis by 'everybody's perfect'... but comparison is the thief of joy," said Jess, from Rhyl in Denbighshire. </p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>"There's so much pressure to try and be perfect and we're not - we get it wrong," she said. </p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>"I think it's really important to have people that kind of say what everyone else is experiencing."</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Jess's social media posts, usually written while up at night feeding her youngest, started getting some attention. </p></div><div data-component="image-block"><figure><p><span><span></span></span><span role="text"><span>Image source, </span>Family photo</span></p><figcaption><span>Image caption, </span><p>Jess has five children, aged 16, 15, 12, nine and four</p></figcaption></figure></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Friends would get in touch to say how amusing they found her stories and encouraged her to consider writing something longer.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Four years later she has turned her anecdotes and musings into a book, Moments in Mummydom.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>It documents everyday moments, from juggling packed lunches, hunting down missing school jumpers to the constant treadmill of sports days and school trips.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>She can be in "full rant mode on the way to school" and "the mad woman, hot-tailing it through the school gates" at pick-up. </p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Then there's the time one of her children mixed up the words pigeon and pedestrian and told her church group mummy had "hit a pedestrian and kept on driving".</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Another time she gets caught short when hill walking and with her trousers still around her ankles overhears one of her children tell a passer-by that "mummy is off having a wee". </p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>There are puddles of dog wee to clean up and calls from the school asking what they can do to help her get her children to school on time. </p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Lunch is frequently eaten standing at the kitchen counter. A day off from her job at a social justice charity sees her clock up 10 miles (16km) doing household chores.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Jess, 48, lives at home with her funeral director husband Leigh, 58, their five children aged 16, 15, 12, nine and four, as well as two dogs and a cat.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>She also has four grown-up stepsons aged 30, 28, 26 and 23. </p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>A year ago she joined a writing course and began work on her book.</p></div><div data-component="image-block"><figure><p><span><span></span></span><span role="text"><span>Image source, </span>Family photo</span></p><figcaption><span>Image caption, </span><p>Jess has written a warts-and-all book about her family life</p></figcaption></figure></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>The book opens with her aged 44 and juggling work and her four young children while grieving for her mother and experiencing what she believes is the start of the menopause - brain-fog, tiredness and intermittent periods.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>She decided to rule out pregnancy, hiding a pregnancy test in her shopping basket under the cheese before life throws her a curveball - baby number five is on the way.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Their "happy surprise" arrives, but then the Covid pandemic hits. </p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>In lockdown she finds herself sleep deprived from caring for a new-born baby and home-schooling four children in Welsh - she describes her Welsh as "not great" - while her husband, a key-worker, continues working. </p></div><div data-component="image-block"><figure><p><span><span></span></span><span role="text"><span>Image source, </span>Family photo</span></p><figcaption><span>Image caption, </span><p>Jess and her family live in Rhyl, Denbighshire</p></figcaption></figure></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>"I went stir crazy," said Jess. "That year was really quite isolating... a whole year of not really speaking to an adult," she said. </p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>"I really had to allow myself some slack."</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>It was quite the contrast from what she was seeing on social media.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>"I'd look at certain celebrities who've got like white decor in the house, I'm like, 'who would choose white? I've gone for the brownest brown so that it hides the dirt," she said.</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>"Everyone's comparing all the time and it's so easy to kind of go on a bit of a guilt fest that you haven't got this pristine home."</p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>Now that her warts-and-all experience of motherhood is available to anyone to read, what does she hope people take from it? </p></div><div data-component="text-block"><p>"Just for people to read it and think, 'do you know what, thank goodness I'm not the only one'."</p></div></article></main></div>