My Mum's Bad Diaries

Jenny Ackland and Lilika May
  • 0.0 (0)
  • PERSONAL JOURNALS
  • WEEKLY SERIES

You're invited to eavesdrop as a mother reads out her teenage diaries to her daughter. Funny, candid, poignant and brave, this podcast is both living memoir and an investigation into what makes (and breaks) a woman. No scripts, no prep; just 40-year-old (diary) gold being unearthed. Even Jenny doesn't know what's going to come up as she lays bare her inner teen world to her daughter Lilika. Their motto is 'we go there', so what could possibly go wrong?

See All

  1. EPISODE 1

    Gerry you sleaze (Vol.6, 1983)

    Hello and welcome to MMBD, season 5! We have a lot for you both today (episode 1) and coming up next week (side chats plural! There's my theory about Virgos and serial killers plus a mega TV catch up). But first, a content warning for this ep: we talk about weight, we also talk about astrology as is our tendency. You've been warned. + We start off as usual with a catch up -- my new flat and how hard it is to choose paint (the best pink is Taubman's Cristabel btw, save yourself some swatches and samples: https://www.taubmans.com.au/paint-colours/pinks-and-reds/cristabel-F8E8E3) and we also touch on mum's knee, her tarot obsession and how exhausted we both feel. Also, did you know Cancers are mentioned in the Epstein files more than 1200 times (mum is quite smug that Sagg is only mentioned 4 times). We touch on Paris Fashion Week, Max the 10-yo and Matières Fécales which mum calls Satanic but then a day after recording actually said she'd read that it was a critique of all things modern and extreme. Then it's on to the diary reading and we're back in 1983, and one day mum's reading Princess Daisy (chick lit) and the next They Used Dark Forces (her favourite Satanist novels). She's planning a school reunion with friends and also manages to meet Gerry, a 'professional fashion photographer' and they 'exhange business cards' which is lol. The photographer says he did the Aquasun ad (we can't find it online) and also shot Isabella Cowan which we did find (see Vogue Australia June 1980 and she also has an insta! She married Peter McNamara the tennis guy). There's a sleazy bet involving Gerry and mum, he tells her she has nice hair, but mum's suss and just focuses on going to Golden Bowl and Karl of Switzerland to get her hair 'tipped'. There's a party in Prahran with a 'Sid Vicious' cutie Ben, the typing of a single invoice and delivery of it to Leader in Blackburn. Granddad pitches another bookshop idea this time with a different girlfriend running it with mum and a plan to go to New Guinea???? Mum sees Flashdance twice -- she tells me it's about a girl who's a welder by day and dancer by night -- and goes to posh drinks at the Hilton Hotel. There's more No Nonsense including a drunk night in Glenroy. One more spaghetti marinara for the tally and we get sidetracked by a great business idea: an '80s-themed aerobics/cocktail/movie night hotspot. Seed investors: GET IN TOUCH1 Finally, an emotional dinner with granddad who cries over a poem written for him, and mum tells me the other times he cried: over football and an obscure town in France which Australian soldiers 'saved' in one of the wars. Oh and here's a recipe for a Fluffy Duck cocktail: 30ml Advocaat 30ml white rum 15ml Cointreau 30ml cream Shaken with ice, topped with lemonade. (Not made with Creme de Menthe, not green. 25-50% accuracy!!) + As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit. Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

    1h 34m

  2. EPISODE 1 BONUS

    SIDE CHAT (virgos and serial killers)

    Content note: murder talk  How do Virgos rate in the serial killer stats? Pretty high. One slide we saw had Sagg at 4, Virgo at 10, Gemini at 9 and Pisces at 7. You can read more about such stats here: https://www.zodiacsign.com/article/most-common-zodiac-signs-of-serial-killers/  And yes, even though in this side chat mum says Cancer didn't feature in that particular slide in the above link Cancers are high in the numbers. As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit. Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

    18 min

  3. EPISODE 1 BONUS

    SIDE CHAT (tv catch up)

    A catch up of all of our shows: Love Story (CBK and John John, which seems to go awry Episode 6), Summer House (sending love to Ciara), Love is Blind (and our learning a new term along with everyone else: hobosexual), Southern Charm and Craig's dirty edit, our VPR rewatch (we're up to Scandoval now) and RHOBH and our take on newbies Amanda Frances and Rachel Zoe. As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit. Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

    28 min

  4. EPISODE 2

    Vol-au-vents (Vol.6, 1983)

    And we're out of the gate with a quick acknowledgement that we're both feeling better than we did 2 weeks ago, mum is reducing her coffee, it's an ongoing odyssey for some reason, and then we move on to the graveyard of boys and their birth charts. Never give a girl your birth date and year let alone your birth time and place. It's on you! I'm hoping for a second burst of summer and am exploring some therapies - reiki, massage and therapy therapy! My challenge is how to learn to be settled in one place, I think there are some shifts! We have a quick Summer House recap because we can't help ourselves (our girl Ciara! Westling! (quite a cool name), and this leads onto a chat about standards, and the eternal conversation about women and men. Then it's onto the diary reading and back to 1983, Golden Bowl aerobics, videos at Camberwell and shopping at Ojay! I notice that mum's doing a lot of driving as per usual, and she has vol-au-vents again as well (we did too, the night before this recording, as evidenced on our insta account). There's lunch at Berlitz Cafe in 'town' (does not turn up in a google search), dinner at Cafe Sport in Lygon Street (doesn't come up with google search either). Mum does some SCV work and types an invoice and puts $10 deposit on a dress at Ojay, and goes to see Breathless with Richard Gere (famous blink actor, and we're reminded of Ryan in The OC, another eye actor). She loves Breathless, she loves Richard Gere.  Of course there's a No Nonsense gig and I ask mum were there ever any new songs, she says maybe sometimes but people liked the old ones they could dance to. Then she's out to Eltham with granddad to a house built by ex-prisoners where she drinks 'beanshooty tea' and negotiates the purchase of a bohemian lampshade. I'm confounded by how mum can be so sangfroid about these interactions... she thinks it's her Gemini moon. As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit. Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening + We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

    45 min

  5. EPISODE 2 BONUS

    SIDE CHAT ('wuthering heights', hamnet)

    Strap yourselves in because we get our scathe on in this side chat which is possibly our longest! We wonder if Emerald is okay. We talk about how this is a scrapbook of a film, a Pinterest board if you will. To start with we cover the plot and characterisation, we talk about the character of Isabella, sexy Joseph, the villainising of Nelly (and of course she's a Lady, she's the daughter of a lord). We talk costumes and even get onto sumptuary laws. Hamnet gets a mention but most of our time is spent on Wuthering Heights, sorry 'Wuthering Heights'. Enjoy. We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

    38 min

  6. EPISODE 3

    Mum is broke (Vol.6, 1983)

    It's September 1983 and mum is counting coin, that's 1c and 2c pieces! But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Our intro, we range across some TV catch-ups including a quick Southern Hospitality chat and Summer House (this is PRE SCANDAL!) We talking failing men, so what's new, dating, the idea of say less (and do less) and even touch on phrenology. Then it's onto the reading. Back in 1983 Mum writes in her diary that she's a bit depressed, she gets her period and hasn't been to Golden Bowl in a while. She's still reading The Hite Report, and leaving the window open for Sid to get back into the house at night. Mum talks about wanting to laugh more and we acknowledge how easy it is to lose the silliness and playfulness of younger years, and how men are good for experiencing this. Yes, you read it correctly. Men are good! They don't sit around talking about their feelings all the time. Jay from skiing pops up in mum's dreams, and probably because she's reading back through her diaries, to the time a few months ago when she was up at the snow. And in addition to boy yearning, she has money problems. Granddad hasn't paid her - he owes her $800! - and she's drinking lemon squash at the pub and borrowing from friends (to go out to dinner... mmm...) And then there's a 'big fight with dad' at 1.45am one morning. Light on details as usual! Mum runs out of petrol in Box Hill, on the way to Leader, and leaves the Beetle there and catches a taxi to work, probably using a CabCharge docket. When she rescues the car the nice RACV man loans her $3 worth of petrol.  She has chops and dried biscuits for dinner and watches Barefoot in the Park, and goes to RMIT open day for the photography course she wants to do next year. With an intake of only 28 students it will be competitive, but she is determined! Go mum! America's Cup is on, and then there's a late dinner with granddad in Lygon Street, after 1.30am which is mad, as well as continuing work cycles of typing one invoice per fortnight and having to get his saline for his contacts. THEN there is a cultural moment where mum has Mexican food for the first time, at Taco Bills. We think this is the first time she's ever had nachos. She finds it amazing. As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit. Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

    1h 28m

  7. EPISODE 3 BONUS

    SIDE CHAT (ladies of london)

    Apologies to Margot, we call her 'nipples' during this side chat. Martha Sitwell is our new icon. ex eife of a baronet (who she cheerfully says rests at the bottom of the aristrocratic hieracrchy), Lady Martha Sitwell is fabulous. She lives in a rental with large sections of peeling paint (just needs a 'lick of paint') and shares her home with a magpie called Hecate -- she shares her martinis with her as well.  We are obsessed and this is ladies of london. You're welcome. We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

    14 min

  8. EPISODE 4

    Snack attacks (Vol.6, 1983)

    Content note: we talk about food, diets and bodies + We start with a position of the planets catch up because this is an astrology podcast now. But mum isn't the only one pre-occupied with the stellium in Aries, at Coachella Madonna was as well! We acknowledge the energy has shifted, it's a bit chaotic and a bit disorganised but better all round than a couple of months ago. This is good news for all who feel it. Before the diary reading, we talk about what it means to decide to be a person who 'does stuff' because if we want to get shit done we just have to do it. We catch up on my latest mini-break and journalling my feelings versus recording just 'what happened'. We talk abotu Clavicular and agree he's not okay. Oh and mum finished East of Eden in about a week, and we have no major TV updates (this was recorded *just* before the big scandal broke on Summer House). Onto the reading and we're back to 1983, and mum's recording the answering machine message for grandad's business. She has a script and everything and we get to hear what it was, with a 2026 rendition! Mum meets ANOTHER photographer who offers to help her with her folio and I suspect the universe is just throwing photographers at her, that's two in a month. But instead of working on her folio which is due soon, mum goes to Inverloch with a friend where a man strips off nude in the pub and they miss out on winning the raffle lobster (it's won by the fish and chip man). Mum's obsessing about the film Breathless (with Richard Gere) and having lots of SNACK ATTACKS which involves driving up to the shops to get ice creams. There's Allniters at the 'Prozzie Hill' pub in Kew, more aerobics at the Golden Bowl and taking her sister to careers night. This is part 1 of a longer recording, part 2 in about a fortnight. Enjoy! + As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit.  Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening! We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

    1h 9m

  9. EPISODE 5

    Rob me two times baby (Vol.6, 1983)

    We're straight out of the gate into the reading, back in September 1983, as this is part 2 of our mega-recording sesh. Mum has a sore throat and is feeling 'rotten' so no Golden Bowl, is doped up on Sudafed and something called 'Disprin' but thinking about her photography folio for RMIT and raking in the cashola from Leader: $160 in folding this week! Her nights are spent watching shows like 'I want to be a nun' and wondering whether granddad is, he's out late and sometimes doesn't home! And the Melbourne Show is on, and mum takes herself off with her camera to take pics for the folio, but ends up only taking ONE. She thinks now, from her 2026 viewpoint, that she was probably lacking in confidence, but then granddad gives her her money. Is this the $800 he owed her? The diary does not say. Mum manages to get a job at the Palais -- she turns up thinking it's an interview but he tells her to get changed and start on the floor. She does drinks waitressing and gets $4 in tips and then promptly loses $2. We talk about Buffy as a name and can't think what proper name it's a diminutive for, but we googled since recording: ELIZABETH. During this episode mum goes to see Sydney ska band Allniters twice (once at somewhere called the 'Prozzie Hill' and the other at The Prince Of Wales, I know that place!! And there a 'cute guy' asks mum to a party in Fitzroy but she doesn't go, there's that lack of confidence again. Hawthorn beats Essendon in the Grand Final, mum goes to Inflation and the America's Cup start is postponed. There are vol-au-vents for lunch (!!!) and 1 x oysters kilpatrick and 1 x spaghetti marinara, not all together. Cat Sid gets sick and mum makes a note to buy 'Yardley black eyeliner (soft)'. We talk about the history of eyeliner in some detail, from the ancient Egyptian times to Amy Winehouse, mum tells me about a show called Return to Eden, we discuss our questionable work ethic, and then Australia wins the America's Cup and mum's work (Leader) bring out the champers at 11AM. Wild. The F-Plan diet appears again, and mum is really happy to tape the end of a song on the radio. Then the house is broken into, and mum's camera is stolen. Two days later the house is broken into again and while mum deals with CIB cops, Sid is diagnosed with cat flu. Must have been all the outdoor prowling he was doing. Poor Sid! Poor mum! Dramatic times! As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit. Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening! We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

    1h 13m
See All Season 5 (9)

Trailer

About

You're invited to eavesdrop as a mother reads out her teenage diaries to her daughter. Funny, candid, poignant and brave, this podcast is both living memoir and an investigation into what makes (and breaks) a woman. No scripts, no prep; just 40-year-old (diary) gold being unearthed. Even Jenny doesn't know what's going to come up as she lays bare her inner teen world to her daughter Lilika. Their motto is 'we go there', so what could possibly go wrong?

Information

  • Creator
    Jenny Ackland and Lilika May
  • Episodes
    157
  • Seasons
    5
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 My Mum's Bad Diaries
  • Show Website
    My Mum's Bad Diaries