From Momfluencers to MILFs: Who Gets Labeled a Bad Mother

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

Jo Piazza, Influence Inc.

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, Parenting, Personal Journals, Technology

4.3 • 833 Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2026

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you’ve had kids, you’ve probably wondered at some point if you’re a bad mother. I would say this is true for 99.9 percent of us. And the other 0.1 percent is Ruby Franke. On today’s episode of Under the Influence, we're joined by Cut culture writer EJ Dickson to talk about her smart, sharp and wildly satisfying new book One Bad Mother: In Praise of Psycho Housewives, Stage Parents, Momfluencers, and Other Women We Love to Hate. “Bad mom” is one of our culture’s favorite labels, and EJ pulls back the curtain on where it came from, how it evolved, and who it’s actually attacking. We talk about why the moral panic tends to land on women (and especially women of color), and how the modern parenting advice industry and influencer economy keep moms perpetually off-kilter. We also get into Mommie Dearest and maternal mental illness, the pressure to perform “good motherhood,” and why even the most self-aware among us still find ourselves blurting out, “I don’t usually give them this much screen time.” This one is a lucky, a permission slip to stop chasing impossible standards and let ourselves just be moms. Order One Bad Mother here Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Still think a master's degree has to cost a fortune and start in September.
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0:18.9	UK and rethink postgraduate study.
0:29.3	Hey all, Joe here and you are listening to Under the Influence.
0:33.9	If you've had kids, you've probably wondered at some point if you're a bad mother.
0:39.8	I would say this is true for 99.9% of us.
0:44.3	And the other point one percent is Ruby Frankie.
0:47.9	Motherhood today is basically a no-win game.
0:51.4	No matter what you do, you often feel like you're doing it wrong. Do you work too much?
0:57.1	You're a bad mom. You don't work enough outside the home? Also a bad mom. Do you gentle parent?
1:04.7	That's not okay. Do you not parent hard enough? Oh, also terrible. This is just one of the reasons that I'm so excited
1:13.4	to talk today with E.J. Dixon. Her new book, One Bad Mother, is a sharp and deeply researched
1:19.6	look at one of the most loaded labels in American culture. E.J. asks who gets called a bad mom
1:25.6	and how that question even came about. But she also dives
1:29.5	into why we're so obsessed with policing motherhood and what all of it says about power,
1:34.7	class, race, and gender. What I'm hoping is that one bad mother is a cultural reckoning.
1:41.8	And maybe, if we're lucky, a little bit of a permission slip to a lot of us to stop
1:47.6	chasing impossible standards and start allowing ourselves just to be human beings again.
	...

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