From Momfluencers to MILFs: Who Gets Labeled a Bad Mother

2026-01-29

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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 curt...

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.

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