On a recent morning, Caitlin Murray’s 8-year-old daughter had a piece of sausage stuck in her palate expander and was trying to hock it out of the orthodontic device at breakfast. Her 11-year-old son, who was recovering from a stomach bug, gagged as he watched his sister. Meanwhile, their 5-year-old brother colored all over the dining room table.
“I was like, ‘Holy s–t, go to school,’” Murray told The Post. “But also laughing at how absurd [it was].”
If “everything was copy” for Nora Ephron — who famously turned her ex-husband’s infidelity into a bestselling novel — everything is content for Murray.
Mining the humor from the chaos and mundane indignities of motherhood and middle age, the 42-year-old Westchester mother-of-three has become a social media star — and attracted celeb fans as Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Aniston, Penelope Cruz and Ilana Glazer.
“It’s sort of all one and the the same, it’s hard to separate,” she said of life as a mom and her work as a content creator.
In.a recent Instagram post that went viral, Murray gives a hilarious riff on the various health advice videos that litter the internet.
“Hey ladies, have you been struggling to lose belly fat?” she says in monotone. “You’re not getting enough protein, OK, you’re going to need to take grams of protein and multiply it by the number of stars in the sky, and that’s how much protein you’re going to need in a day in order to lose weight, but you’re also going to need stay in a caloric deficit in order to lose weight, idiot. But you also need to live your life: memories, not macros … comment science for my six-week plan to get totally snatched.”
The video has attracted some 12 million views and drawn raves from notables such as parenting expert Dr. Becky Kennedy and Grammy-award winning singer Pink, who called it the “funniest thing ever” in the comments section.
“It’s sort of surreal,” Murray said of her success and high-wattage followers. “Just being a pretty regular mom and then having these people that are mega stars that recognize your face all of a sudden.”
Her internet stardom came in roundabout manner.
Murray’s eldest son was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 3 years old and spent over three years in intensive treatment.
She took to writing emails to family and friends that gave updates on his health, mixed with humor and anecdotes. They caught the eye of a neighbor in publishing who got her some business meetings, but Murray was told she couldn’t get a book deal without an online following.
So, in late 2018, she launched her Instagram account, @BigTimeAdulting. It originally focused on funny videos of her dancing, often with her youngest strapped to her chest.
Murray, who previously worked in fundraising for the Ireland Funds and the Dalton School, has no formal training in performance or writing beyond some high school improv. But, she said, she’s “probably always been a bit of a ham.”
These days, her social media is focused on observations delivered straight to the camera, often in an exhausted monotone and with colorful language. (Neither her children nor her husband appear in the videos.)
“No you can’t go to Sephora with your baby skin,” she says of the trend of young girls obsessing over pricey skincare. “Why don’t you get out there and go find a rusty trampoline to get double bounced on with no side enclosures.”
In another video, she declares “Travel sports are becoming a real kick in the t-t. If you guys want to keep scheduling these kids’ games for 7, 8, 9 o’clock at night on a weekend, I’m gonna start handing out martinis on the sidelines.”
Murray typically appears tired in her posts, her hair pulled back messily, her face bare — the better to see what she say are her “genetic” prominent undereye circles.
“I had never seen anyone on Instagram looking like death warmed over the way that I do in the morning, every day,” she said of her aesthetic choices.
Murray’s older son is now a happy, healthy fifth grader in full remission. But his cancer has left a lasting mark on her as a parent — and a comedian.
“Going through that experience felt like I had so much street cred as a mom, and I could sort of say whatever I wanted about the ups and downs and funny things of motherhood,” she said. “I really didn’t care if it seemed, you know, taboo.”
And, she now has a book deal. Her collection of personal essays is set to be published by a Random House imprint in 2025.
“It’s been like such a cool experience to sort of shift careers and gears at a later stage in my life,” Murray said. “I didn’t necessarily expect it, but it’s been super fulfilling and fun.”
