Books for "Bad" Moms (NOT a gift list)
10 memoirs to make you rethink motherhood
“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”
― Mary Karr, The Liars Club
Today is Mother’s Day here in America, and I considered skipping writing today in favor of extended festivities, but my little writer-mother heart desires to blog as much or more than it yearns for flowers, taffeta dresses, pancakes, mimosas, or even a spa day, though a spa day does sound nice. Plus, I got to faire la grasse matinée, which is really the only Mother’s Day gift I need.
And I know I’m LUCKY AS HELL to sleep in today.
When I was a single mom with a young, not-yet-diagnosed-autistic child, there was no such luxury. My early relationship with Mother’s Day was mega-fraught, and because of this, I send my shoutouts every year to all the single mammas with no relief, and to all their kids, because it ain’t easy, and you end up with a lot of guilt, fear, and feelings that you are a bad mom, that you have failed.
But really, you probably haven’t failed, because no matter how bad you think your parenting is, someone out there is doing MUCH WORSE, and despite this, their kids may still turn out great. Weirdly enough, “good parenting” doesn’t correlate 100% to “good kids.”
Having children is more like opening a portal to another dimension, where you have absolutely no clue what might come through, could be a witch or a sweet-talking unicorn. Some babies are born brilliant, caring, and kind, while others fail to launch no matter how much mothering you pour in.
So, I decided to make a booklist to celebrate the “bad” moms! The drunk moms! The reluctant moms! The overbearing moms! And for the moms who think they’re bad, but could actually be much worse.
My own mom is basically perfect, for the record, like stereotypically perfect, but I don’t think that about myself, so I had to read a lot of bad-mom memoirs to feel better. These are the ones that helped me the most along my journey.
*Noticeably absent will be Jennette McCurdy’s memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, because I haven’t read it yet.
Drunk Mom
“I’m guilty. If not of murder, I’m guilty of manslaughter… I’m turning myself in. I’m turning myself in because I’m pathetic and because of another paradox: I am trying to be a responsible drunk mom and I fail at that too… I am the Howard Hughes of Bottles. I am the Howard Hughes of Secrets.” — Jowita Bydlowska, Drunk Mom.
Maybe no writer-mom on earth has taken more backlash to her book than Toronto-based author Jowita Bydlowska, the woman behind the memoir Drunk Mom.
If you are a mom with a drinking problem, you better read this one right now. You’ll probably realize that your drinking problem is not so so bad, not compared to Bydlowska’s story (sorry). Also, this memoir is very well written, and she teaches creative writing at my grad school alma mater, Ryerson University.
I finished this book years ago, but three scenes stayed with me, and circulated in my thoughts, especially in the midst of my wettest, coldest, saddest, loneliest mom years, when I also lived in Toronto.
Relapsing on cocaine while breastfeeding in the bathroom of the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Her mental map of all the LCBOs in Toronto and their closing times. (Been there, done that.)
Stashing bottles of booze in her baby’s stroller and wandering the darkness of the city in the freezing snow with her baby so that she could secretly drink alcohol.
I reflect on the hauntingly sad real-life character of Jowita sometimes still, and though I don’t know her personally, we have a mutual acquaintance. He insinuated once, years after the book came out, that she was not doing well. I can totally understand why. She relapsed after publishing this, because of course she did; we almost all do. I hope she’s doing better now.
So, buy this book just to support her. It’s maybe the most vulnerable and raw memoir you’ll ever read.
Two More Drunk Moms
“I get so lonely sometimes, I could put a box on my head and mail myself to a stranger.”
― Mary Karr, Lit
Mary Karr, Texas queen of the pen, wrote so much about her alcoholic mother that she started to become her. It is against this destiny that she fights in her third memoir, Lit.
All Karr’s memoirs are incredible and each involves motherhood, even her guide to writing memoir, The Art of Memoir, but Lit is the MOST about motherhood, her own, and her mother’s, including both of their struggles with alcoholism.
Three scenes really stuck with me from Lit:
Mary’s son has gone to bed, and she stays up all night chain smoking and drinking on her back stoop, gazing into the void, replaying all her mistakes and her mother’s mistakes until her mind goes numb.
“I exhale a highway of smoke and stare down it, then say, Each day has just been survival, just getting through, standing it.” — Mary Karr, Lit
Puking with her kid in the car on the way to school because she’s so hungover. — “As I hit the loop, I see a guy slumped on the sidewalk in a puddle of his own pee. My stomach goes kablooey and I puke in my lap. I’m glad it’s only half a mile to my son’s school… My own hangovers seemed to detonate in my face like a photo flash. They left me humbled and nauseous, with my brains feeling like they'd been swapped out for packing peanuts." — Mary Karr, Lit
She and her husband’s difficulties parenting together — "We both tried to eat the biggest shit sandwich, tried to outdo each other in being most selfless. But when it comes to baby care, your spouse will always make you feel like you're not doing enough." — Mary Karr, Lit
While The Liars Club is my favorite of the three, they all deserve acclaim. Karr is a poet and a sentence-smith. I recommend reading her books in chronological order because they offer a chronology of her life.
The Liars Club (childhood)
Cherry (the teen years)
Lit (adulthood)
The Art of Memoir (writing about family and motherhood)
I also recommend getting the audiobook versions if you are into the genres of memoir, quitlit, or literary fiction, because there is no more perfect incantation for the books than her own Texan drawl.
Mary Karr’s mom also gives me hope, because of all the moms portrayed in these books, she’s probably the worst, or at least the second worse, yet Mary Karr turned out to be an AMAZING, incredible, brilliant, successful person (eventually). Literally, her mom was constantly drunk, shot at people, and burned her toys; STILL, Mary Karr thrives on.
Yes, even “bad” moms make good kids.
The Hillbilly Moms
“People like Brian and me don’t lose contact with our parents because we don’t care; we lose contact with them to survive.” — J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy
Moving onto my next two book picks for “bad” moms: The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls, and Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance.
Now, before anyone gets their bibs in a bunch over hating J.D. Vance or his politics, let’s focus on the writing quality of his memoir (damn good) and on how he turned out successful by any measure, despite having a world-class “bad” mom.
Furthermore, where would “bad” moms be without Appalachia? I say this tongue in cheek because I grew up in Appalachia and I love the region, but the world loves to make fun of us, and some stereotypes, turns out, are true.
"My love for my mother comes with a heavy burden. Her life is proof that you can come from nothing, you can overcome even seemingly impossible odds, and yet still lose to your demons." — J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy
You probably already know these hillbilly mom stories because they were both so salacious that Southern California people came and made them into movies. Both of these memoirs resonated with me, spoke to my own experiences with people in western Virginia, where I grew up, and in both cases, the books were far better than the movies.
In The Glass Castle, the author’s mom bounced around a lot, but they eventually move to rural West Virginia, and that’s the part that stuck with me the most. It shows her own mother and also her father’s mother, who is a cruel child sex abuser, and an angry, racist woman. Poor Walls. Her father is also no peach, but it’s her eccentric, mentally ill mother who I remember the most because her mother actually has money but insists on keeping the family in poverty.
“Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul, and that was why she ignored us kids when we cried.” — Jeanette Walls, The Glass Castle
An old Israeli friend of mine who’d seen a lot of violence, animal cruelty, and poverty, and who’d lived through a vicious crocodile attack that left him on the verge of death, used to say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and what doesn’t make you stronger makes your parents stronger.” That pretty much sums up these books.
A Few More Kinds of Mothers
“Subservience of any kind is death to the spirit.” — Alice Walker
Beyond the “bad” moms, there are the reluctant mothers, the hyper-strict/controlling mothers, and the unintentional mothers. Those matter too.
Regarding the reluctant mothers:
In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, by Alice Walker
I’ve mentioned this book before, in my piece on the Muse’s treatment of women. This is not truly a memoir, it’s a collection of essays written by reluctant mother, Alice Walker, and while she doesn’t condemn motherhood completely, she laments its effects on women writers. A womb of one’s own is as important to Walker as a room was to Virginia Woolf. The book is also about feminism, lesbianism, womanism, and being Black.
“…sexism is not the sole cause of our oppression. It is the catalyst that drives us into a state of self-search that yields other explanations, other revelations. For instance, why are most of us so joyless, so stiff, and so unnatural when we become mothers? Is it all due to conditioning, or is some of it nature?… [And] Why are women so easily "tramps" and "traitors" when men are heroes for engaging in the same activity? Why do women stand for this?” — Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.
Walker urges readers to find complexity in motherhood, to allow for diverse forms of motherhood, and to value and expand our social tolerance for women who do not wish to be mothers. Revolutionary stuff for 1983.
Regarding the unintentional mothers.
What I Thought I Knew by Alice Eve Cohen
The most hilarious of all the books on the list is What I Thought I Knew by Alice Eve Cohen. My mother gave it to me, probably to cheer me up about my own motherhood experience. It’s full of wickedly funny Jewish mother humor.
In this memoir, the author writes about accidentally getting pregnant at age 44 and giving birth to a premature baby with major challenges and a deformity. It is a remarkably happy book given the circumstances, and though Cohen had no plans of being a mom, her story of motherhood will make you laugh and cry and spit out your milk.
She also includes lists:
“What I Know
My baby is tiny.
One leg is shorter than the other.
She’s quiet.
She’s having trouble nursing.
Nobody knows what’s wrong with her…”
— Alice Eve Cohen, What I Thought I Knew
And finally, my last pick.
Regarding the controlling mothers.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua
“Chinese parents believe their kids owe them everything.”
― Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is the classic controlling mother blockbuster book of the 2010s. I LOVED it. Though I wonder what Amy Chua’s grown kids think about it now...
If you thought you had a controlling mom, wait until you read this one. Yet, I’m nothing but envious of Chua. I wish I could be a mom like this. Believe me, I tried, but I can’t keep it up. Maybe all mothers wish their kids were world-class pianists or chess players or doctors, but Chua takes determination to another level.
Reading some of her quotes a decade later, they seem pretty politically incorrect, which is maybe why this book was such a hit.
“The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable-even legally actionable-to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty-lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self image.” — Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
This book will definitely make you feel bad about your parenting, but if nothing else, it’s an instruction manual for “bad” moms on how to do better, while also being a reminder that even “good” moms turn out with teenagers who hate them, so just do your best, whatever that is.
So, Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s out there—the good, bad, terrible, and the amazing ones too!
Now You
Have you read any of these “bad mom” memoirs? Which were your favorites?
Why are there more “bad mom” books than “bad dad” ones? Is this true? What are the bad-dad books?
Do you think kids kind of just are who they are? What percentage of parenting really matters?
Do you still speak to your parents? Did you grow up with a “bad” mom?
Great write-up! Thanks for all the good-read recommendations. I love how well you write; and, I wish I had known how difficult it was for you back then :( Sorry I didn't and happy for you that you found resilience and are where you are in the present - much to be proud of.
"Fail to launch" LMAO