Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace »

A former public defender, Ayelet Waldman left the legal life to write about topics close to her heart: marriage (she's married to fellow author Michael Chabon) and motherhood. She broke out with her clever series of Mommy-Track mysteries, and has garnered praise for the stand-alone novels Daughter's Keeper and Love and Other Impossible Pursuits.

In our mothers’ day there were good mothers, indifferent mothers, and occasionally, great mothers. Today we have only Bad Mothers: If you work, you’re neglectful; if you stay home, you’re smothering. If you discipline, you’re buying them a spot on the shrink’s couch; if you let them run wild, they will be into drugs by seventh grade. Is it any wonder so many women refer to themselves at one time or another as a “bad mother”?
 
Writing with remarkable candor, and dispensing much hilarious and helpful advice along the way—Is breast best? What should you do when your daughter dresses up as a “ho” for Halloween?—Ayelet Waldman says it's time for women to get over it and get on with it in this wry, unflinchingly honest, and always insightful memoir on modern motherhood.

The Washington Post - Annys Shin

Waldman hates to hold back, and that trait serves her well in Bad Mother, a collection of 18 essays, many of which have been published previously. She covers a lot of the terrain of modern motherhood as experienced by a privileged subset of women…After reading these stories, plenty of parents will fault Waldman for something or other. Plenty more will be able to relate.

Introduction: Or, Life in Eighteen Pieces 1

1 Bad Mother 5

2 The Life She Wanted for Me 21

3 Free to Be You and I 42

4 Breast Is Best 58

5 Tech Support 70

6 Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle 80

7 My Mother-in-Law, Myself 86

8 Drawing a Line 97

9 So Ready to Be the Mother of a Loser 103

10 Sexy Witches and Cereal Boxes 109

11 Rocketship 122

12 A Nose for Bad News 137

13 To Each His Own Mother 145

14 Legacy 154

15 Darling, I Like You That Way 172

16 Baby Lust 179

17 The Audacity of Hope 186

18 The Life I Want for Them 196

Acknowledgments 209