A decade or so ago, it seemed like the coolest kind of mom to be was a bad one. They blew off PTA meetings, were fueled by rosé, and wrote irreverent blogs about their children’s tantrums and diaper blowouts. They rejected the sentimentalized idea of motherhood as a sacred calling in service of which a woman must relinquish her independence, her sexuality, her anger, her very identity. Smash cut to 2026, and the mothers of America seem to be locked in a constant, frenzied battle about who can gently, authoritatively, attachedly, and and intensively parent the best. The government lionizes white, conservative mothers who bear large broods, while separating immigrant mothers from their children and smearing liberal women who oppose the administration as “gangs of wine moms.” The labels of “good mom” and “bad mom” seem more oppressive than ever. How did we get here?
In journalist Ej Dickson’s new book “One Bad Mother: In Praise of Psycho Housewives, Stage Parents, Momfluencers, and Other Women We Love to Hate,” she unravels the trope of the bad mother, from its origins as a tool in upholding white supremacy to its proliferation into a host of bad mom archetypes we now encounter every day. Lately, we’ve been thinking a lot about these labels — how they are used to determine which women in our society deserve support, grace, freedom, and even life. So we were delighted to get to chat with Dickson about her entertaining and enraging book, which explores the idea of the bad mom largely through reconsiderations of cultural figures (Stifler’s mom, Mommie Dearest, Mama Rose). We also talked about some of the good/bad mom types that are on our minds the most lately, like gentle moms and MAHA moms.
Toward the end of our conversation, Dickson brought up the short-lived aughts reclamation of the “bad mom” label. Why did it end? Should we bring it back? Or is there another path to escaping the tyranny of the bad mom label? We may not have the answers, but we gave it a shot!
We hope you enjoy this conversation, and if you do, we recommend checking out “One Bad Mother” — we didn’t have time to even scratch the surface of this fantastic book.
