Revisiting the Bad Mother’s Club
I first discovered The Bad Mother’s Club when I was pregnant, and my Dad introduced me to one of his uni friends, an earth mother type who was studying online communities of mothers.
She recommended The Bad Mother’s Club as an antidote to all the women’s magazines exhorting you to be practically perfect in your domesticity - and I did find it awfully entertaining in the early days of mothering a newborn.
The site has a mixture of features, regular columns and discussion forums. Revisiting it today after more than a year, I discovered that there’s a much larger focus on including “bad dads” in the community including an entertaining blog about a new stepfather coping with the fallout from falling in love with a married woman with five kids… and then marrying her.
I was also tickled by the Bad Housekeeping Institute, in which “bad mothers” all around the world can send in their tips, which range from “to avoid tea stains on cups, buy black cups” and “Lampshades dusty? Buy new lampshades” to actual housekeeping tips like “thank god vinegar actually got the stain out!”
I didn’t go back to the forums, but I remember using them quite extensively in my first-mothered days - it was here that I learned of the dreadful act that is the “mothering drive-by” - that is, the unwanted advice and criticisms that mothers inflict upon other mothers (complete strangers!) in public. It provided me with a strong sense of armour when I was faced with similar situations, and made me very cautious about being a perpetrator myself. I really really really try hard not to criticise the public parenting of others *ever* but mostly feel proud for not criticising anyone to their face!
The site’s definitely worth a visit.
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