Typology of the Bad Mother
Saturday, June 6, 2009 There has been a lot of talk lately about bad mothers. Is bad good or is bad bad? I linked to one of the discussions on this issue in my post yesterday and the newspapers seem peppered with them the past few days too.
I think part of the problem with the whole conversation is that there is no consistent definition of what a bad mother is. Each person defines it differently. As someone that likes to organize or classify things, I keep getting dizzy when reading these articles because I don't know what they are talking about half of the time and I'm not sure they know either.
So I started thinking about what a bad mother is. I thought about some of the things I had read. I asked people whether they would consider themselves bad mothers and how they would define a bad mother. All of that with the intent of coming up with this typology of the bad mother.
When you think about a bad mother, what do you envision?
Here are the types I have discovered so far:
- Neglectful or abusive and don't know better: Some moms have been dealt the wrong deck of cards in life. They may have grown up being abused or were neglected. That is the only type of parenting they know and they are just continuing the cycle. Others maybe really didn't want to be parents and just don't care enough to try to be a good parent. As an example, @mirandababy considers her mother a bad mother: "Neglectful even to this day, unresponsive, uninterested and completely disassociated". Some moms, like @AmberStrocel who blogs at Strocel would restrict the "bad mother" category to those that are truly neglecting or abusing their kids and don't care to change that.
- Kids don't come first: There are moms who admit that they love their husband more than their kids and will always put their husband's needs first. Obviously all moms need to balance the needs of all family members, but these moms have established a specific ranking order where the kids are decidedly not first. Those that put their husband first include Ayelet Waldman author of Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace and blogger Zaida Grunes (@manhattanspeaks).
- Not perfect and oblivious: There are mothers that are not perfect and don't realize that they are making poor decisions. According to @emilyjh75 "Everyone makes bad choices sometimes. Bad choices do not define her as a bad mother. Unless, IMO, she refuses to recognize them and continues in bad decisions." Or put another way, @nicolemarr from Grudge Mom says "bad parenting is making mistakes and not learning from them. Like repeatedly letting them fall off a couch".
- Not perfect and doing the best they can: A lot of moms recognize that they are not perfect, but they realize that there is only so much that they can do or should do. They realize, like @doudoubebe that everyone has bad days. Or they feel, like @jmegan, that they are the best parent they can be. Some might consider this synonymous with the Good Enough Mother concept and others would say that they while they accept what they did wrong today or yesterday, they are going to continue to try to be a better parent tomorrow.
- Not perfect and feel guilty about it: Then there are other mothers that know they are not perfect and feel guilty about it. For some, it may be debilitating guilt, enough to trigger depression or worse. For others, it is occasional questioning whether stumbling through is good enough or wondering if there is a way to repair past mistakes. These mothers may feel overwhelmed by too few hours in the day (@ewiller), or not enough energy (@fentonslee), or just a desire to be able to do more (@scunning).
- Overindulging: On the opposite end of the spectrum from wanting to do more are those moms that do too much. While they probably wouldn't consider themselves bad moms, there is research on overindulgence that suggests that doing too much for your kids can have negative consequences. These mothers are criticized for not giving their children an opportunity to learn how to do things for themselves or to make decisions for themselves.
- Going against the mainstream on purpose: Some moms get called bad moms because they have made choices that are different from the mainstream. However, these moms have made those choices on purpose because they think it is the best thing for their child. These are not neglectful parents. These are parents that have carefully considered the options and, for example, decided that extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, or not vaccinating is the best choice. Other parents may let their children do things that are considered dangerous or shocking by others, ranging from unstructured play to riding the NYC subway alone, because they think it is an important developmental experience.
- Worried about or bothered by what others think: There are women who let other people define whether they are a good mother or not. Whether it is comments on a blog post, looks at the playground, or just seeing someone else do something they couldn't do, these moms feel like bad moms because they aren't being the type of mother that society expects them to be. @Kathryn_Easter says that "as Moms we compare ourselves to other Moms and feel like we don't like up to certain standard" and she also admits to having parented differently in some cases just because she was in a public place. Perhaps we all do this a little bit...most people want to fit in, be liked, be admired.
- Bad and proud of it: For some moms, it seems like being a bad mom is becoming a competition. It is the new black. The in thing. They always try to one-up each other: "You think that's bad, well how about this?". There are whole websites set up just for moms to confess how bad they have been and while the initial intent may have been good (e.g. let moms get something off their chest), they seem to quickly degenerate into a competition about who was most neglectful or abusive. Don Mills Diva, for one, is not interested in jumping onto this bandwagon as she said in her post Why the bad mother trend is not good : "I have my struggles, like everyone, and while I might occasionally write about them in a humorous fashion, I'm not interested in endlessly tapping the vein of faux self deprecation for shock value or cheap laughs or sympathy. Or to be trendy." She would rather just be a very good mom.
- Bad...and a mother: Then there are those women who consider themselves bad. Perhaps they are what James Dean would have called a rebel without a cause. Or they are just your garden variety trouble maker. They aren't necessarily bad mothers. They just happen to be bad...and be a mother. Perhaps they are raising the next generation of hoodlums or perhaps their kids will rebel against their badness.
Not all mothers necessarily fall into the same category every day or some mothers may fall into several of these categories all of the time. This list isn't intended to pigeon hole any one mother into a specific category because mothering is complex and our relationships with our children are complex. But I did want to take the whole "bad mother" conversation one step forward by trying to put some definitions around the different things that sometimes get defined as "bad" because I don't think we are all talking about the same thing when we talk about a bad mother.
I also want to say that like @AmberStrocel, I'm going to reserve the term "bad mother" for those that are truly abusive or neglectful. That isn't to say that I'm lining up to give "mother of the year" awards to every other type I've described, but I don't think that it is helpful for me or anyone else to label someone as a bad mother if they are doing their best. Instead I think we should stop glamourizing "bad", we should offer a helping hand to those that are struggling, we should be confident in our own parenting, and we should continue to think about how we could improve.
As for me, I have no interest in being a bad mother. I don't plan to do wrong by my kids in order to make friends. I don't feel like I need to beat myself up for the things I can't do. I don't feel like I need to accept that I am good enough, because I like being a work in progress. I do go against the mainstream sometimes (okay maybe more than sometimes), but I have good reasons for it and I won't let other people call me a bad mother for doing it (so there Ontario coroner).
Reader Comments (72)
Oh, honey.
*HUGS*
You have a lot on your plate, both emotionally and physically.
You are NOT a bad mother, you had some bad behavior and reactions in this scenario. HUGE, HUGE difference.
HUGE.
I never, ever, like EVER speak of this on my own blog, but I grew up in a very angry household. My parents loved me (and our relationship now is really, really good) but my father used to whip the hell out of me with belts, yardsticks, brushes, brooms, whatever was in reach. His spankings left welts.
He was angry ALL. THE. TIME.
I grew up in utter fear I would abuse my own children. If not with my hands, with my own pent up anger that I felt.
Then I left home and much of that left. (I'm a pretty jovial chick. Ask anyone. :) )
BUT...it didn't mean that I didn't have some inner reactions to things that came from my upbringing. I spent years working on my reactions and feelings and I can count the number of times I have spanked my children (3 living, one deceased ages 15-2 yrs) on well under 2 hands and the only reason that they have been spanked is when they have done something to put them in great danger (like they ran out into the busy street) and my husband and I WANTED it to be a highly negative moment so they would understand and equate it with DO NOT DO THIS to keep them safe.
BUT...
Sometimes in the heat of the moment, I feel that jerk instinct to lash out physically at them. And at times it's gone so far as to swat a leg harder than I realized. And I snip and yell much more than I like. And it is almost ALWAYS when I am at a point where things have piled up on me with emotional and/or physical stresses.
And when I realize that is happening I work to take that stress away. When that gets manageable so does my behavior.
I am no doctor and I don't know your situation. Medication might be necessary for underlying issues (and there is no shame in that), but to me this doesn't speak of needing medication as much as needing someone to talk to so that you can work through all the frustrations that come with your situation. To find a way to give you a 'moment' where you can think and catch your breath before you physically react
The phrase "getting help" is lame. Sometimes finding help is hard, intimidating and expensive. BUT...if you cannot afford or find a therapist or don't like them (I confess to not being the biggest fan of traditional therapy), there are SO many ways to get your stress down. Yoga, meditation, finding some moments to just be quiet and calm. You need to fight to get that time, even if it's hard. Consider it as important as eating and breathing.
Also...and this is huge....do you have a system of support with other people that 'GET" your situation? (I googled and it looks like there are a lot of possibilities for NF1 online support) When my son died, I was saved by blogging. Because I had support of people who got what I was going through. That I could reach out to and be understood and who I could bounce things off of. It was invaluable to me.
I don't know if any of this helps, I just hope that you know that many of us have compassion and I hope that you can be gentle with yourself.xo
You are not a bad mom! It's a challenge to raise kids and the fact that you don't want this to continue shows that you love him! I remember as a kid my mom was stressed to the limits with 8 children at home and my youngest sister has Cerebral Palsy. I remember on several occasions she couldn't take it anymore, things were too difficult and she would end up lashing out at us, slapping or saying something regrettable. I don't hold it against her as an adult, and I would never say those actions made her a bad mother. I think the difference in a bad mother and a good mother who makes mistakes is assuring the child that it was wrong to take it out on them, and that even when we make mistakes as mothers we still love them very much and will try to improve.
Don't be to hard on yourself, you sound like a very loving mother!
Hi Worried Mum! I haven't read through all the other poster's comments, but I just wanted to add my experiences of ADHD (as someone who has it). Firstly, you're not a bad mother! ADHD is so difficult to cope with at any level and whoever has it, the whole family are affected in one way or another. My thinking through reading your post is- ADHDers HATE being told what to do. It makes my blood boil that I'm not allowed to spend my day doing 100 things that don't count towards anything! I'm wound up very easily and I snap at my loved ones and would be violent towards my sister when we were younger. It's not your sons fault and you need to make everyone around you aware of that. Being told off by anyone other than my parents made me feel like everyone was against me.
It's important for your sanity to pick your battles. It might feel like you're getting nowhere constantly because he's constantly 'not listening' (his head is elsewhere) or disobeying your orders (finishing what hes doing before trying whatever it is out his way before he decides that his way is how he wants to do it - we're a creative and inventive bunch!) If he's not harming anyone, let him carry on. He might look like he's being naughty, but letting an ADHDer have some freedom, makes life a lot less stressful for all parties. Keep disapline routines for when he is being truly naughty. There are lots of ADHD message boards for parents in your situation and there might be a local support group near you. Have you tested yourself for ADHD? It's genetic. You may be feeling stress more because of it? You might think 'no way!' but it's worth a look in. Try the free DORE test online.
Sorry if my post seems a bit messy or off, I've had my head in the clouds and as I'm breastfeeding, I'm off meds! If you want me, I'm bigauntiemeg@ googlemail.com or bigauntiemeg on twitter
Lastly, you're clearly a loving mother who wants the best for her son. Chin up! Xxx
((hug))
None of us has perfect patience.
For me, I have a lot of trouble staying patient if I am overwhelmed or if I have things other than the kids that are stressing me out. The more I have on my plate, including both the kids and non-kid things, the harder it becomes to stay patient. I lost my patience as well last night and I apologized to my daughter afterward. None of us perfect and I think it helps for our kids to see us as human as well.
We all need breaks and support and I hope that you can find some.
Here are links to a few other posts that might help:
http://www.phdinparenting.com/2010/11/19/ready-to-snap/
http://www.phdinparenting.com/2008/12/14/patient-parenting/
to all of you who responded to my distress call...thank you...i have never reached out, beyond my husband and mother, to talk about my issues...all i ever get from them is a "don't do it again" and indeed, they do say i'm not a bad mom but there is nothing worse than self-condemnation...to read what others blogged and vent eased my worries beyond measure...i now see this is one of the many ways to go to relieve stress/self-loss...i will take everyones advice and reach out in the recomended ways and know that they will work because even venting my worries has eased of a huge burden of self doubt...thank you all again and this website is now a book mark on my computer...thanks again - no longer worried mom, now relieved mom :)
thank you! very helpful...adhd runs on my hsubands side as well as his genetic disorder...a few of our nephews have it and their parents struggle too...of course they dont live any where near me and ive only met them 2 times so venting to an unseen face seems better...again thank u...its nice to hear from someone who has grown up with it first hand and i will look into those websites...thank u again!
Hi Worried Mom: I just saw this post, and also had to comment. I'm so happy you've become a "relieved" Mom because of such a great outpouring of support from this blogging community. My daughter had GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) as a baby, and I will be honest that I scared myself a couple of times in dealing with the stress of a sick/screaming baby 24/7. There was once or twice when I remember putting her down roughly in her crib, and then crying for hours over the damage I perceived I had done to her (both physically and emotionally). We all get pushed to the limit as mothers, especially those of us dealing with kids with special needs (and for myself, postpartum depression). I applaud you for speaking out, because I still find it hard to talk about those situations with my friends/family. But the more I have discussed the uncontrollable rage I felt back then, the more I hear the same from other mothers, and I feel comforted in sharing all of my flaws! I wish you ALL the best in your search for support, and regardless of some things that you feel you need to work on, I think you are the "perfect" mom, just as you are.
[...] There are hard days and there are amazing days. There are days when your toddler is fun, and loving, and cute. But there are also days when your toddler is frustrating, and stubborn and difficult. There are days when you are an amazing parent. But there are also days where you feel like the worst parent in the world (I know because you’ve told me and because people Google “I’m a bad mother” every day and end up on my blog). [...]
My husband said I was a bad mother because we argued a lot, and I didn't like the way he treated the children and me.
I really like this blog, but I more so liked your comment on this blog. The romance between someone and their life long partner til death do us part and also the romance between a woman and her children from childhood into adulthood! It's a wonderful blessing to have both. I think sometimes we forget to acknowledge that part of a family!
I agree that you can only label another mom as bad if they are truly abusive. But as for myself, sometimes the worry that I'm a bad mom in those other ways helps propel me to do things one step better...and then I feel proud. For instance, I started overdoing jarred babyfood. Too convenient, and though I don't believe anything is wrong with the brands of jars, I want my baby to eat more variety and fresh ingredients than are available in the jar. So I got fed up with being the "good enough" mom and whipped up some yummy homemade stuff. Well, its one small step but its to show that a little self consciousness can be beneficial if it doesn't paralyze. And I go through phases, too...some weeks/days I strive for perfection, and some I gladly plant but on couch and let hubby take over (those days I am especially thankful for him!) ...and about marriages: my husband and I were attached at the hip before baby came....during the early months I completely focused on our child but now little by little I am working on. Being a wife again (emotionally).
[...] I am a big advocate of discussing and debating the merits of different approaches to parenting, but it never needs to come down to the point of questioning whether someone is worthy of being a mom, except in cases of obvious abuse or neglect. [...]
[...] I've said before, there are a great many reasons that people get called bad mothers. But as far as I'm concerned, the only ones that deserve the label are those who are abusive [...]
"Bad moms" are the elephant in the room that no one wants to point out, yet everyone is quick to judge a "bad dad." I know quite a few moms who put their jobs, manicures, hair appointments, and general social life before there children and I think the real clincher is, society tells us to do that, to put ourselves first. I actually disagree, I believe children should come first and if it means going without a manicure and nice clothes, then so be it.
I am a "Mom who go against the norm," and while I am not sure people consider me, "bad" but they do consider me a "weird, hippie mom who is to over protective." I guess I have been willing to "make enemies" so to speak, to ensure my son comes first. We plan on homeschooling our son, we also eat a very healthy, organic diet. This doesn't sit well with members of my husband's family. My SIL is very "mainstream, works 60 hours a week, feeds her children McDonald's every day," and is fully against my parenting style. It is sad really but I do have a group of good friends who share in my parenting beliefs, it makes life easier to have people in your parenting court. :)
Hello blog,
hmmm, where do I stand on this topic ? I don't know yet, I am not a mother not by choice but I am a teacher because I long to be a mother. I am now in an unuasal position to actual become an adoptive mother my long held dream of becoming a mother by all means. I am now teaching in an University in China where becoming an adotive mother has come to my reality something not so complicated or hard to achieve in a rural remote location in China. I dreamed since I was 30 of being a mother through birth, IVF etc but such matters have not been in my reach but now I have a chance to be an adoptive mother with out many formalities as opposed to in the US or going through an international agency etc. It is scary. I am preparing now to be a mother to a month old with malnurtrition and I am frighten to what may lay before me. What is I can't get her fat, what is she has brain damage due to the malnurtitioin then what do I do since I am 47 grrrrr. I am afraid that my desperation to be a mother and a good mother may put me in a position to raise a child with special needs if I am not careful not that I wouldn't do so if Ihad my own that required special needs but it's to soon to tell and even still will I be able to change my life style to suit a child regardless of their needs? grrrr, I want this but afraid, I guest all mother's to be are afraid too at some point. Anyways, needs some supportive words if I am ok with this chose from mother's out there. Thank you
Lisa
Maybe you can help me out with this topic. Someone dear to me has a daughter who puts all of her priorities in front of her childen, ages 10 through 14. She claims to be ill all the time , but manages to go out practically every night to party (marijuana) and stay @ HER BOYFRIENDS apartment. tHESE KIDS wake up and go to school on their own,and come home to a motherless home more often than not. When one of the kids are sick, one finds it difficult to get her to come home and tend to the child,that is once you have located her,usually on a phone other than her own,which she will rarely answere. What kills me is her X step father allows her to live @ his home expense free leaving her with out reason not to be the best mother and provider for her children. How many mothers would love to live rent free and bill less. And yet she still is not home in the mornings and , or , when they return from school. Their grandpa , the x step father, is getting real tierd of her sh.. and would have booted her out along time ago if it weren't for the kids. She's always too sick to find a job but never too sick to stay gone for days at a time. Grandpa loves the babies but, rightfully so,feels that he should not have to come out of retirement to raise her children. There's more,but let me get a touch from the minds of you experienced moms before I continue. This womans mother along with any of the other relatives that may attempt to intervene feel like their hands are tied because she will use the kids as a tool to get her way; eg. she would not allow grandma access to the chidren,physically nor verbally for years the last time the grandma tried to add some corrective critism. Looking forward to your advice. Any advice. Respectfully yours, Hand cuffed.
Oy. I have been giving this topic a lot of thought for a really long time and I have my own definition to share. I believe that our job as mothers is to raise competent, self-aware, thinking, empathetic children into adulthood. We are supposed to recognize them as growing human beings who make mistakes (which is what we all are until the day we die). We are supposed to equip them with life skills. We are supposed to teach them about respect by giving it AND demanding it back. I know mothers who my mother-peers would consider great moms and I think they are actually "bad mothers" because they are incompetent mothers. They love their kids, but they fail in the areas of sleep (hello? NO bedtime ever?), nutrition (eating crackers all day is not what is meant by feeding them) and behavior (these kids are OUT OF CONTROL). And even though people around them tell them that this can lead to no good, they "know better" and are too proud to change anything. There are a lot of areas in which we can fail as mothers and you don't have to get high marks across the board to be a good mother. I do believe there is a lot of validity to the "good enough mother" theory, but you have to think about what is going to happen with your kids down the road as a direct consequence of your actions. Is that a person that everyone else will want in their society? Or are you falling short? I think there are very few mothers who aren't actually doing their best- it is just that some women have so many issues to start with that their best is not really good enough to create a resilient, emotionally-well-adjusted, honest, harding-working person with integrity.
Some parents don't realize that you have to elicit there child's problems from them,because kids usually who have problems show fiscal traits but don't speak up fearful of embarrassment. Early phobias are the hardess beaten, left alone to fester,so give valid advice from every angle, make it your problem from a bird's eye point of view. If your worried about them being quit,distant,agitated,sad, ect and you wont to do something about it then your a good parent.
I'm ninteen and I've had problems one after the other with my body mind soul ext . I've tried reaching out to my mother many times in the past to gain insite or help but she's been childish and dismissed me as one.I've gone through mild obesity to life threatening anorexia, and extra teeth that has made me self conscious to say the least that weren't taken out. When I was sixteen I attempted suicide, but all that came from it was cuttling and silence, not questions or what can I do solutions just silence. I'm not a conformist or brat, I've alway been calm composed and low maintenance never asking for attention.so if your gonna have a kid make sure your not one fyi.
One type of bad mother you forgot to mention is the narcissistic, sociopathic, pscychopathic, or otherwise personality disordered. I grew up with a manipulative, controlling, cold shrew that continued to f*&k with my life well into adulthood.
Even people with aspergers can have difficulty engaging with their kids and meeting their needs.
I help raise a little lady and my daughter (My Mommy is what the little lady calls her) has custody of her. Little Lady is my son daughter that is no longer with us. My son and was in a relationship with Miss. Bad.
Miss. Bad set my son up to be murdered and she pretty much got away with it. About 6 weeks after Little Lady was born thing looked okay then Bad went to a store and took Little Lady at the store Bad decided she wanted to keep the $400.00 that my son gave her to buy drugs so she loaded up the baby buggy with a few hundred dollars worth of merchandise and got busted. My son went and got Little Lady and bailed out Bad. This started a problem and they separated Little Lady staying with My Son. 2 months latter Bad came and got the baby decided she would keep Little lady and she moved into a friends home who's children were going to be removed by CPS until her foreign husband took the kids to his home country in the middle east. My Son went over and a took Little Lady back but not without a fight. Bad field charges and the police called in CPS. Bad told my son it was because of the fight. Bad didn't say anything about her failed drug test of the unfit living conditions. My son wrote and had certified a letter giving custody to my Daughter CPS came to my house and seen that Little Lady was in good hands and left a legal form for my son to sign over custody. 2 months latter my Son went and turned himself in for the fight and did his time in county, Bad was no where to be found when my son was released Bad found him and wrote him a loving letter about how sorry she was and how she wanted to get her 1st daughter from her parents and get Little lady and all become a family. Bad then gave him a dose of GHB and her and some others got a hold of his life savings of over $14,000.00 took him to a dirty hotel and gave him a lethal dose of GHB and Heroin and when he wouldn't die they covered his face with a wet towel, he died 3 days latter. a month latter Bad get arrested by the secret service with counterfeit money and and spends almost 3yrs in federal prison I get a call from the secret service they wanted to meet with me they tell me that they gave information about my sons murder to the local police who did nothing because of the way my son was murdered. The others involved were all put in jail for unrelated crimes Bad's parents moved out of state and Bad moved there as soon as she was released. When Bad was in jail she wrote Little Lady about once a month when she was released she stopped she is supposed to pay child support she does not she does not provide health insurance or help with and expenses. But the last couple of weeks she has sent a package of used dirty clothes a couple of dollar store toys and pictures of Little lady's half sister she called once and had sister tell her that Little Lady was going to come visit them next summer. She sends a card and writes that Mommy Misses her a Mommy Loves her. I don't want to hurt Little Ladies feelings or confuse her My daughter has 2 other daughters and Little lady calls the her sisters and it is beautiful the way my daughter and her 3 daughters love each other Little gets good grades and is very loving. Bad continues to try and mess that love up. That is wha I call a Bad Mother.
I think that it is up to the child to determine whether or not their parents were good or not. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors. Just because someone is a good friend to you, does not mean they are a good mother to their children. Not to mention, the person who believes another is a good parent, may not be a good parent themselves. A child, at the very least, needs a parent to do the same things that one would want a significant other to do. Be understanding, be strong, don't dismiss their feelings as though they are insignificant, and be there for them. In addition, a child needs guidance. Some people should really not be allowed to reproduce. Lots of times if they were brought up in a neglectful home, and did not have the ability to realize that it's not the proper way to care for a child, they will repeat the pattern. It's only when a child of one of these parents, may actually be exposed to some positive experiences from parents of their friends, or possibly other close relatives, that there is a good chance they will not follow in their parent's footsteps. Plain and simple...if you don't want the responsibility that comes along with having a child...don't have one. It's not easy, and no one ever said that it was. But, it's your own choice and a choice that cannot be reversed without causing some serious psychological damage to the child. But, then again....some people just don't care.