Celebrity Treasure Island’s Courtney Dawson on becoming a mum at 20 - One Day You’ll Thank Me

Courtney Dawson. Photo / TVNZ

Welcome to season five of the Herald’s parenting podcast: One Day You’ll Thank Me. Join parent and host Jenni Mortimer as she navigates the challenges and triumphs of parenting today with help from experts and well-known mums and dads from across Aotearoa.

Want to get in touch with the podcast? Email the team at odytm@nzme.co.nz.

Comedian, Celebrity Treasure Island star and Paddy Gower Has Issues co-host Courtney Dawson became a mum at just 20 years old - and although she and her son’s father are no longer together, she hesitates to call herself a single mum.

“It’s like, I am a mum and I don’t have a partner, but I do not feel I’m raising my son by myself,” she tells the One Day You’ll Thank Me podcast.

“Me and his dad both have huge extended families, massive family support. We have a really good relationship.”

Dawson’s son, Arie, is now in his early teens, and the comedian says the past few years have been a “bit of a transition phase” when it comes to their mother-son relationship - something she compares to “that feeling of breaking” up as he grows closer to adulthood.

“Our custody agreement has always just been like an open dialogue,” she tells host Jenni Mortimer. “It was like, when he’s older, then you can have him more, but I really need him to be here now. But now we’ve reached a point where he does want to hang out with his dad more ... since the beginning of the year, he’s been living the majority of the time with his dad.”

Those who become parents at a young age have the added challenge of caring for children while still growing and maturing themselves - and for Dawson, it was no different.

“I was also going through all of the growing pains of being a young 20-year-old and dating, and when you’re 20 and doing that and trying to be a mum at the same time, you know, I didn’t always get the balance right,” she says, recalling “this really strange experience of growing up together” with her son.

But despite all the challenges that come with solo parenting, Dawson says “when it is good, it’s so sweet”.

“I had this moment when all that Andrew Tate s*** was going on - I was like, I’ve got to talk to Arie about this because he’s on TikTok and stuff ... like, what if my son has been corrupted by the internet?” she recalls.

“And so I was like to him casually, ‘Oh, so have you heard of this guy Andrew Tate?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah’. And I was like, ‘What do you think about him?’

“And he was like, ‘I mean, I guess I get some of the things he says about hustling, but he says some real whack stuff about women’. And I was like ... yes, I did it. I raised a good human,” Dawson says.

“So ... actually the best thing that I found I can do is just do what I can, just trust that it’s all going to work out.”

Dawson hopes that one day her son will look back and thank her for showing him that “no matter what you want to do, at any stage in your life, you can do it”.

“I hope that I show him that taking a risk and doing things that you love, will pay off.”

• Listen to today’s episode of One Day You’ll Thank Me below for more on trying to find that work-life balance.
• You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are out every Thursday.