“The Good Mother remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neuroses and inadequacies onto her children, is an active and beloved community volunteer; she remembers to make playdates, her children’s clothes fit, she does art projects with them and enjoys all their games.  And she is never too tired for sex.” (From the front cover of Bad Mother.)

Sometimes you read something and you just say to yourself, “OMG that is sooo me.” You can see yourself in anything if you use your imagination.  I like to have sex before breakfast sometimes so I’m not too tired and isn’t bacon a fruit?  It’s like reading your horoscope every day when you are single and even though it says, “You are a complete fool for reading this and you are going to grow old on a hill with 25 cats,” you manage to eek out, “You are a fool for love and you are going to meet a hot 25 year old that loves cats.”

Ayelet Waldman, the author of Bad Mother, gained notoriety when she wrote in her New York Times column that she loved her husband more than her children.  I was intrigued, so I picked up her book. 

She opens with “bad mother” Britney Spears, Andrea Yates Wendy Cook and Susan Smith.  Though Britney’s motherhood crimes don’t compare to the others, we were glued to her “bad mother” stories.  She almost dropped her baby, she shaved her head, she gave up custody instead of going to rehab. We are drawn to her stories and the horrific ones of the other three, like a child to the candy aisle, because they remind us that we are good moms.  We would never do ANYTHING like they did and that makes us feel a hell of a lot better as we lay our heads on the pillow at night.

In reference to the NYT Column, Waldman writes: In that essay I wondered about why so many of the women I knew were not having sex with their husbands, while I still was, and I concluded that it might be because they, unlike me, had refocused their passion from their husbands or partners onto their children.  I wrote, “Libido, as she once knew it, is gone, and in its place is all-consuming maternal desire.” And then I spent some time worrying about what was wrong with me:  Why hadn’t I successfully “made the erotic transition a good mother is supposed to make”?  I said that if a Good Mother was one who loved her children more than anyone in the world, more even than her husband, then I was a Bad Mother, because I loved my husband more than my children. 

This book reads like a page-turning novel.  Perhaps it’s because with every page you feel your shoulders begin to relax, your jaw loosening up and the wrinkles on your forehead releasing (cheaper than Botox) with the knowledge that we are all in this together.  We all screw it up often, we get it right sometimes and that is as good as it gets. No more trying to be the perfect mother.  It DOESN’T exist.  One more thing to check off your list.

p.s. In order to write this article ColtonColton aka: Moose, Duece, Colt, CJ
Age: 3
Favorite Word: Fart
Hobbies:  Playing in the dirt, setting off fire alarms at preschool and bossing people around.
Best Qualities:  The sweetest disposition this side of the Mississippi. had to watch, not one episode of Oswald, but two.  I also plan on deserting him for an hour later today with a sitter while I go for a run.  One more thing, I hate playing with Legos and NoahNoah aka: Mac Daddy
Age: 12
"Special" Qualities: Holds a grudge for longer than you can remember the offense. Talks nonstop
Best Qualities: Wakes up with a smile every day and walks to the beat of his own drum. had pancakes for both breakfast and dinner yesterday.