‘Where’s the school? The red light district?’
A mum has revealed the abuse she gets for the outfits she wears when dropping her son off at school, with people online accusing her of flashing “her a***”.
Charlie Hayes, has amassed more than 100,000 followers on TikTok where she showcases her colourful, alternative outfits, but not everyone is a fan, with some users branding her outfits “inappropriate” and “too revealing” and accusing her of being a “bad mum”.
One of the 22-year-old’s recent outfits led one TikTok user to ask: “Is it normal to flash your a*** at other parents and kids?”
Another said: “That skirt is far too short for the school run”.
The same outfit – a black top and tights with boots and a purple mini-skirt – even prompted a motorist driving past Charlie to shout “you look disgusting”.
But Charlie, who describes her look as “camp” and “theatrical”, isn’t letting the abuse censor her sartorial choices.
“People think I’m a bad mum because I don’t fit the mould of a typical mum,” she explained.
“But the more people tell me to tone it down the more I go against it. I like winding people up with the way I look.”
Charlie said she thinks it is “crazy” how her clothes “make people so angry that they go online and say the vilest thing they can think of”.
“Like, go to therapy man! Why are you that invested in what someone’s wearing?”
Charlie’s son, Jasper, has also fallen victim to trolling, as people have taken to social media to criticise his waist-length blonde hair, a style Charlie says is his choice.
She said: “The most horrific comments I get online are directed towards Jasper and his hair.
“I’ve been accused of abuse, neglect, attention seeking and pushing him to be gay and trans.
“People seriously are insane. He’s just a boy with long hair.
“I am a bit like a bit hippy. I let him play with whatever toys he wants and don’t make him adhere to gender norms.
“But he’s always gravitated towards more boy’s stuff anyway. He loves cars and Spiderman and Marvel.
“He just likes his long hair – he thinks it’s cool and that’s it.”
If Jasper tires of his long hair, Charlie says she will cut it.
The four-year-old’s hair once incited a woman to scream at the mum in a Burger King.
“A lady came up to us and said ‘she’s really cute’.
“I said ‘oh, he’s a boy’, and she started shouting at me, asking what genitalia he had.
“No one stepped in, which upset me because she was shouting in my face in front of Jasper.
“She also said ‘you are going to confuse it’, referring to him.
“Poor Jasper was just trying to eat his ice cream.”
Charlie does worries about Jasper being bullied for his locks but so far he hasn’t faced any mean comments from fellow pupils.
The mum “does [her] best to let him express himself” but tries to push him towards “normal kids stuff” to protect him.
“He keeps insisting he wants the underneath of his hair dyed rainbow. I’ve suggested blue or red but he won’t have it.”
Charlie, who moved from Ireland to Canterbury as a teenager, expected it to be a liberal place to live due to its large student population, but has found the opposite.
She describes Canterbury as “one extreme or the other” in terms of people’s reaction to her looks.
“Canterbury was hit or miss. I either had people being really nice or really mean to me.”
Charlie has now moved to Folkestone where she is feeling much happier, saying people are “a lot friendlier”.
Despite getting a few double-takes on the school run, Charlie says the parents and staff at Jasper’s school have been nothing but nice to her.
She said: “All of the staff at school and nursery have no prejudice towards me, for the way I look, or for being young or anything. “The other mums are nice too.
Most of the negative reaction I get is on the internet – I think that’s where people feel safe to be nasty.”
Charlie insists if the school were to say an outfit was inappropriate, she wouldn’t wear it again.
On TikTok, critics have said: “Where’s the school? The red light district?” She has also been asked: “School or strip club?”
A common reaction is always “poor kid!”.
Surprisingly, most of the hate comes from women, and often other mums.
Charlie said: “If it’s a man it’s easier to brush off the hate.
“The majority of men online are just annoyed that I’m not a standard baby-making machine.
“It’s so upsetting when it’s from other mums, especially tattooed or alternative mums. I expect it from men, but not women.”
Charlie buys most of her clothes from charity shops and within her extensive wardrobe the young mum has some particularly controversial pieces. This includes a maxi dress picturing ashtrays full of cigarette butts.
She said: “People got really angry about my ashtray dress because they said I was promoting smoking to kids.
“I have one top that has an AK47 on it that says ‘make peace not war’ and people got really upset about that because I was wearing a gun on the school run.
“I think people who are already uncomfortable with the way I look just wait for a reason to justify being uncomfortable with it. “So, they can say ‘look there’s a practical reason you can’t do that’.
“I don’t think any of it is valid criticism.”Charlie believes the source of the hate is the expectation for women to “fit into a box of the typical mum” after having children.
She added: “I think as a young mum you’re expected even more to prove yourself and be modest, quiet and follow the rules. I don’t feel I need to prove myself to anybody.
“I’m a good mum and Jasper is an amazing kid, so I don’t really care to fit a mould of what’s expected of mums.
“I think it’s absurd that after you pop a kid out – one of the hardest things you could do – then is the time to be docile and settle down.”
While other children tell Charlie that they love her clothes, she is worried that as her son gets older, he will be on the receiving end of abuse due to her crazy style.
But she feels that “having embarrassing parents growing up is sort of a rite of passage”.
She added: “People are much more accepting nowadays and will continue to get more accepting, so I don’t think the way I dress will be so controversial as he approaches his teens. “Anyway, maybe I won’t still dress like this then – but I highly doubt that!”
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