Michael Leunig's artist sister returns fire over cartoon of young mother on phone

The artist Mary Leunig has declared her brother, Michael Leunig, should “speak to people and listen to people more” and said he unfairly picks on women and mothers after the cartoonist was roundly criticised for his latest work.

On Wednesday, Michael Leunig, 74, published a cartoon in the Age joking that young mothers were too “busy on Instagram” and neglecting their children.

“Mummy was busy on Instagram / When beautiful baby fell out of a pram / And lay on the path unseen and alone,” he wrote, with an illustration in his signature style.

Online, critics derided the work as “boomer bullshit”, and pointed to a series of his cartoons they claimed unfairly targeted mothers for supposed poor parenting.

The long-running Nine newspaper cartoonist has previously drawn cartoons advocating anti-vaccination and criticising working mothers who placed their children in childcare.

On Wednesday, his sister, Mary – a visual artist who uses political and satirical themes – published a cartoon of her own that showed herself shooting Michael in the bottom, as the pram-pushing mother from his cartoon watches on.

On Thursday, the normally reclusive artist told Guardian Australia that Michael “does not talk to people enough” and had a warped idea of what mothers were like.

The artist said she published the response because she was “sticking up for mothers” and because her brother was “picking on people who don’t need it”.

“I don’t know whether he is being cheeky or he just likes to make feminists angry.

“But for this particular one … I know mothers. I talk to women with children and the load they carry …And they are not the people that Michael thinks they are.

“I think that he does not talk to people enough, he doesn’t listen enough. And because of that, he is missing out. If he was to speak to people, to talk to these women, I don’t think he would do something as stupid as that.”

Mary, 69, said she had become estranged from her brother in recent years.

“It is difficult for mothers, we try very hard,” she said.

“That’s the only reason I respond to that [cartoon]. I could have let that go. If it was about feminists, I could have let it go because he does that and we all know. But I couldn’t let this one go. Because I do know women and parents who have kids, and he just shouldn’t do that. He shouldn’t do that.

“But listen, he’s getting old,” she added. “That’s all I can really say about that particular cartoon.”

The image of her shooting her brother is an old work but was adapted on Wednesday to add the mother figure in response to Michael’s latest cartoon.

Mary told Guardian Australia she made the older image eight or so years ago.

“I think it was after a slight disagreement with Michael about him involving himself in advising me on my children. The reason I did it was because it was funny. It was not done with malice or anything like that. I just thought it was funny.”

The Walkley award-winning cartoonist John Kudelka tweeted: “Everyone needs a sister to properly keep them honest.”