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“Bad” Mothers

The term bad mother is a moral, political, and social pejorative, applied to countless women in countless places. It is a label that is distinct from the case of bad parenting more generally, focusing in the specific task of mothering or, more precisely, on its failure. Because the mother-child relationship is burdened by cultural practices and sexual politics, the question of what makes a mother “bad” includes the issue of whether bad mothering is a legitimate category in the first place. It is therefore a distinctly difficult historical, philosophical, and psychological question. Although this discussion is limited to the Western (and especially American) 20th- and 21st-century preoccupation with good and bad motherhood, this is by no means a statement about the relative importance of other perspectives.

Good Mothers

Most ideas of the good mother, like any value-laden term, are culturally bound and socially constructed. This is not to say that they lack social, political, or psychological staying power. There are some broad beliefs about good motherhood, which, while not necessarily universally shared, nevertheless tend to persist. Generally, the focus tends to be on two questions: first, who the mother is, and second, what she does. The former question is often translated into concerns about whether the mother is married, heterosexual, middle class, not too young or too old, and so on. The latter has, from about the 1700s, been interpreted as a concern with how domestic, doting, and successful in raising good children she is. A good mother protects her children and does not deliberately or neglectfully harm or abuse them. A good mother cares about being a good mother. More recently, a good mother listens to child-rearing experts, and is always aware of their latest advice.

The label of bad mother is applied to women regardless of their race, sexual orientation, religion, or socioeconomic status. However, these considerations have been key in furthering the stereotype. The following three categories provide an overview of modern bad motherhood.

The Selfish Mother

The selfish mother puts her own needs before those of her children, either harming them by her absence or failing to protect them from harm. Even though historically, women—especially poor women and slaves—have worked both inside and outside the home, the focus since the 1950s has been on the conflicts between the woman's role as a child's primary caretaker versus her role as a provider and someone with career interests and ambitions outside of the home. These working mothers are sometimes labeled as selfish or blamed for anything from their child's bad performance at school to autism to abuse. Sometimes, the label of bad mother seems to be applied without much regard for the reasons the mother is outside the home. As a feminist journalist and poet, Katha Pollitt has argued that this is used simply as a reactionary response to feminism. More recently, the “bad mother” label has been applied to women who have not placed the needs of their unborn child above their own, whether as a result of choice, addictions, poverty, or simply by not following the experts' advice about what it means to be a nurturing expectant mother.

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