{"id":1760339,"date":"2026-02-09T18:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T15:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1760339"},"modified":"2026-02-09T18:40:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T15:40:00","slug":"does-the-internet-have-mummy-issues-ej-dickson-investigates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1760339","title":{"rendered":"Does the internet have mummy issues? Ej Dickson investigates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-0-1760-1173\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436680.jpeg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"main-article standard \">\n<div class=\"article-main-content article-wrapper has-media-but-its-an-image\" data-status=\"loaded\" data-primary-article=\"true\" data-url=\"\/life-culture\/article\/69592\/1\/does-the-internet-have-mummy-issues-ej-dickson-investigates-one-bad-mother\" data-article-id=\"69592\">\n<header class=\"article-header has-landscape-image no-media\">\n<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.33\" data-template=\"Standard Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Florida Project\" class=\"img\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1400\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436680.jpeg\" width=\"1760\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">The Florida <span class=\"nowrap\">Project (2017<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-02-09T18:40:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"09 February 2026\"><span class=\"month\">February<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"9\">9,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/q-and-a\">Q+A<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"standard-tag-container\"><a class=\"standard-category\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a> \/<br \/>\n<a class=\"standard-series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/q-and-a\">Q+A<\/a><\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>Does the internet have mummy issues? Ej <span class=\"nowrap\">Dickson investigates<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>We spoke to the author of One Bad Mother about MILFS, tradwives, and how motherhood is being weaponised for the \u2018laundering of evil\u2019 across <span class=\"nowrap\">the US<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-02-09T18:40:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"09 February 2026\"><span class=\"month\">February<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"9\">9,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-02-09T18:40:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"09 February 2026\"><span class=\"month\">February<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"9\">9,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/laurapitcher\">Laura Pitcher<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>On social media, you can drive engagement if you post your mum and she\u2019s considered a MILF. There\u2019s an entire content category that exists purely for the purpose of praising mothers who look like they \u201ccould be the sister\u201d to their (also extremely beautiful) daughters. Your peers will comment to ask about her secret. What face cream does she use? What does she have for lunch? And does she do pilates? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>On the other end, mums who post anything without a flat stomach become a projection of all of the worst fears of those <\/span><span>young and childless. <\/span><span>It\u2019s why when you open the comments on a post-partum video, you<\/span><span>\u2019ll see comments like, \u201cThis is why I don\u2019t want kids\u201d. <\/span><span>T<\/span><span>o be a \u201cgood\u201d mum online usually means \u201cbouncing back\u201d immediately and being fun enough to keep up with the trends, without being <\/span><em><span>so fun<\/span><\/em><span> that you forget your place as nurturer and homemaker. It\u2019s about riding the thin line \u2013 attractive but not provocative, outgoing but not abrasive \u2013 so as not to be deemed a \u201cbad mum\u201d. <\/span><span>This can be applied to women of any age, really. It\u2019s also what Ej Dickson explores in her new book, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.simonandschuster.com\/books\/One-Bad-Mother\/Ej-Dickson\/9781668051115\"><em><span>One Bad Mother<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Dickson writes about the \u201cbad\u201d mums people love to hate online. She unpacks how we relate to mums online \u2013 everyone from stage mums and MILFS to Mormon mumfluencers and Hannah Neelman (of Ballerina Farm), who\u2019s the unofficial queen of tradwife content \u2013 through the lens of pop culture and American history. <\/span><span>To some, being a bad mum looks like <\/span><span>EmRata when she posted a photo holding her baby like a bag. Or the <\/span>\u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@alexbabii97\">doughnut mum<\/a>\u2019 who dared to post a video of her feeding her one-year-old <span>three mini powdered doughnuts for breakfast. But <\/span>the \u2018bad mum\u2019 title is also\u00a0<span>how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecut.com\/article\/trump-smears-renee-good-wine-mom.html\">America\u2019s right defended why Renee Good was shot and killed<\/a> by ICE officer Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis last month. In the US, motherhood has become a cultural battleground \u2013 a quiet war that takes place between sourdough recipes and babies with emojis covering their faces online.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The internet clearly has mummy issues. <\/span><span>To understand why, we\u00a0<\/span><span>spoke to Dickson about what we project onto mumfluencers, or other women who exist online, and how <\/span><span>motherhood is being weaponised across the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>What made you want to write about bad mums?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson:<\/strong><span> I don\u2019t think of the book as about motherhood, but more about being a woman in the United States and all of the insane expectations that people put on you as a result. It\u2019s impossible to be a \u201cgood mother\u201d and, in this country, it\u2019s this way because of design. The more inadequate, frustrated and helpless women feel, the less likely they are to complain about how unsupported and isolated they are. I was interested in how the culture applies the \u2018bad mother\u2019 label to any woman who deviates from societal expectations of them, or dares to view motherhood less as a calling and more as a form of labour, in relation to influencers. Also, I just wanted to write about MILFS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"e8acba60-8970-42e9-bba1-b3ec01336da0\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1400\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436738.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.65\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"One Bad Mother\" class=\"img\" height=\"2159\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436738.jpg\" width=\"1400\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"credit\">Simon &amp; Schuster<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>What role does social media play in reinforcing these expectations of women?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>Social media makes parents feel like they\u2019re parenting in a panopticon. You\u2019re constantly being watched, and you&#8217;re constantly watching others. Since starting this book, I\u2019ve heard of so many instances of women who have been reported to CPS because their commenters saw their videos and thought their houses weren\u2019t clean, or they didn&#8217;t like the way their child held a pencil, or they didn&#8217;t like what they were serving their child for breakfast. There are dire consequences to being shamed on the internet, and it\u2019s even worse if you\u2019re a woman of colour or come from a marginalised background.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s as if, as soon as anyone posts their child, they are no longer a human, but part of the general mumfluencer content category.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>People who grew up on the internet are used to the flattening of identity, where we see people on the internet as narratives rather than fully fledged people. This isn\u2019t specific to mothers, but we\u2019re also already trained not to think of mothers as people with individual identities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>I want to go through a few more divisive motherhood debates online with you, if you\u2019ll let me. What do you think about the childless people who post complaining about the babies next to them on the planes versus those in the comments informing them that being around children, in fact, is part of living within a community?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>I don\u2019t even think that\u2019s about children specifically at all. The word community is key to that one, because the internet has transformed us all into thinking about ourselves as individual brands who are driven by self-interest. Because children have higher needs than other adults, I think children are kind of the sacrificial lamb for that conversation, when actually the internet has made us all less empathetic. That\u2019s my working theory.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>I think that tracks. So what about the babies that are posted with the emojis over their faces?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>In the book, I write about Maya Knight, who is the mother of two twin daughters. She started posting when they were really little, but she was constantly getting scrutinised for anything she posted. One day, she decided to stop posting her kids\u2019 faces, and everyone jumped down her throat immediately. They hated her for posting her kids, and hated her for not. You really can\u2019t win. I don\u2019t think that one has even really been broached in an intelligent, thoughtful way at all yet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>If everyone is too hard on mothers online in general, is all mum criticism equal, then?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>No, obviously not. I think Ruby Franke is a good example, where people on the internet were seeing this woman post really terrifying content and were raising red flags for years and years until the authorities finally did something about it. That\u2019s obviously a person who merited the criticism that she was receiving. And, even for less extreme examples, I think there are ways to post children that absolutely violate their consent or privacy and warrant criticism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>We\u2019re witnessing the laundering of evil through mothers, and we\u2019re also seeing it the other way around<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>I think a lot of young people are also rightfully concerned about tradwifes growing as a content category under this right-wing swing. How can we differentiate between those who enjoy posting their lives at home and those with more sinister intentions?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson:<\/strong><span> It\u2019s difficult. Tradwives are something I have complicated feelings about, and, again, it\u2019s something where the conversation merits more nuance. A lot of these women, like Ballerina Farm, were raised in very conservative environments. It\u2019s a woman who is clearly ambitious and educated, but was also taught her entire life to live within these very limited circumstances. So, figuring out a way to carve a space for herself within that and monetise it to tremendous effect is a pretty impressive achievement, regardless of whether or not you think her content is good or not. Or whether you think her content is helpful to society, which I don\u2019t. What scares me more than her as a person is that there\u2019s such an audience for her content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>I definitely see the appetite for the content against a backdrop of a general questioning of what the \u2018you can have it all\u2019 brand of feminism <em>really<\/em> did for young women. To some, it\u2019s led them to lean more towards conservative gender roles and tradition. How have mumfluencers become a vehicle for this?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>I think that\u2019s played a huge role in why you see tradwives become so successful, and it\u2019s a huge part of the reason why you see the womanosphere on the rise today. Women like Alex Clark and Candace Owens are espousing these very traditional values of femininity and discouraging women from buying into the \u2018have it all\u2019 myth. And I say myth because I think it is a myth. I came of age during a time when that\u2019s exactly what I was told: that everything would be like Miranda from <\/span><em><span>Sex and the City<\/span><\/em><span>. People are taking up and realising that having a child has become a privilege, and it\u2019s basically impossible in the\u00a0 United States to own a house. They\u2019re revolting against that, and I understand it, but, unfortunately, the pendulum has swung so quickly and so dramatically in the other direction. They are seeing how women like me are burnt out and tearing their hair out all the time, and they\u2019re like, \u2018We don\u2019t want that. I\u2019d rather get married at 23 and pick my own produce.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>When writing the book, did you find yourself empathising with these women in unexpected ways?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>Definitely. I think it\u2019s the journalist\u2019s job to have empathy. There was no way to write this book without some degree of empathy for the women I was writing about, even when that was difficult, as it was in my chapter about the anti-vax and MAHA mothers. I\u00a0 have interviewed a lot of those women throughout my career, and I find basically every single one of their beliefs abhorrent. I consider them in a lot of ways predatory, but I also consider them victims. In a lot of cases, they are parents of children who are chronically ill, and the medical system has failed or disregarded them. They\u2019re looking for answers, and that\u2019s something we should all be incredibly sympathetic to, even if we are horrified by how they\u2019re channelling that pain.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why do you think motherhood as an identity has become this cultural battleground right now in America, specifically?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>It\u2019s really scary to watch, honestly. So much of what we\u2019re seeing now reminds me of the stuff I was researching that was happening in the country years ago. The Right is framing women, specifically white women, as the guardians of future generations and the preservation of traditional family values. It\u2019s something the Klan was doing at the turn of the century. Women were pivotal in the Klan. They were basically the ones doing the fundraising, organising the community and putting a friendly face on the vicious hatred that their husbands were spouting. And that\u2019s kind of what you see happening again right now with someone like Katie Miller and her podcast. Here\u2019s a white, millennial mother who is talking about fitness and eating clean, while she\u2019s married to one of the most evil men in the country, who&#8217;s responsible for what&#8217;s going on in Minneapolis. We\u2019re witnessing the laundering of evil through mothers, and we\u2019re also seeing it the other way around.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>How does this \u2018laundering of evil\u2019 apply to who the far-right consider bad mums?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve seen the \u2018wine mum\u2019 discourse, but a lot of mothers in Minneapolis who were radicalised by the death of Alex Pretti and Renee Good have been on the front lines and putting their bodies on the line. These aren\u2019t necessarily all liberal women, but they\u2019re just rightfully absolutely horrified by what&#8217;s happening. The Right is noticing, and they\u2019ve started smearing these mums as drunk wine mums or as part of an antifa gang, using these women\u2019s motherhood against them in really obviously misogynistic and belittling ways. So, we see motherhood become a symbol on both sides, really. It\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the weaponisation of motherhood against women in this country.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. 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decoding=\"async\" alt=\"GettyImages-1005639160\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/480\/0-0-1024-681\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436091.jpg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"card-latest__content\">\n<h3 class=\"card-latest__title\">The women fighting for trans inclusion at Hampstead ponds <\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69535\/1\/adult-children-going-no-contact-with-their-parents-brooklyn-beckham-estrangement\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"card-latest__img-wrapper\"><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sentimental-Value-Review.webp\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/480\/139-0-1218-810\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436129.jpeg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"card-latest__content\">\n<h3 class=\"card-latest__title\">Why are so many young people going \u2018no contact\u2019 with their parents?<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69545\/1\/fire-horse-alice-sparkly-kat-2026-chinese-new-year-snake-astrology\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"card-latest__img-wrapper\"><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Addison Rae\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/480\/0-194-1440-957\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436437.jpg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"card-latest__content\">\n<h3 class=\"card-latest__title\">The year of the Fire Horse: What does it mean for you?<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"swiper-slide list-element\">\n<div class=\"scard-latest__section\">\n<div class=\"card-latest__wrapper\"><a class=\"card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69551\/1\/desa-potato-head-bali-hotels-sustainable-luxury\"><\/p>\n<div 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src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/480\/0-0-1082-720\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/5\/1435862.jpg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"card-latest__content\">\n<h3 class=\"card-latest__title\">Is a social media ban the answer? 5 experts weigh-in<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69472\/1\/what-went-down-at-jim-beam-nyc-bash-new-york\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"card-latest__img-wrapper\">\n<p class=\"optional-paragraph\">Jim Beam<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"jb_cover\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/480\/0-2-3000-1995\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/4\/1434902.jpg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"card-latest__content\">\n<h3 class=\"card-latest__title\">What went down at Jim Beam\u2019s NYC bash<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline\" data-newsletter hidden>\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>On social media, you can drive engagement if you post your mum and she\u2019s considered a MILF. There\u2019s an entire content category that exists purely for the purpose of praising mothers who look like they \u201ccould be the sister\u201d to their (also extremely beautiful) daughters. Your peers will comment to ask about her secret. What face cream does she use? What does she have for lunch? And does she do pilates? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>On the other end, mums who post anything without a flat stomach become a projection of all of the worst fears of those <\/span><span>young and childless. <\/span><span>It\u2019s why when you open the comments on a post-partum video, you<\/span><span>\u2019ll see comments like, \u201cThis is why I don\u2019t want kids\u201d. <\/span><span>T<\/span><span>o be a \u201cgood\u201d mum online usually means \u201cbouncing back\u201d immediately and being fun enough to keep up with the trends, without being <\/span><em><span>so fun<\/span><\/em><span> that you forget your place as nurturer and homemaker. It\u2019s about riding the thin line \u2013 attractive but not provocative, outgoing but not abrasive \u2013 so as not to be deemed a \u201cbad mum\u201d. <\/span><span>This can be applied to women of any age, really. It\u2019s also what Ej Dickson explores in her new book, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.simonandschuster.com\/books\/One-Bad-Mother\/Ej-Dickson\/9781668051115\"><em><span>One Bad Mother<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Dickson writes about the \u201cbad\u201d mums people love to hate online. She unpacks how we relate to mums online \u2013 everyone from stage mums and MILFS to Mormon mumfluencers and Hannah Neelman (of Ballerina Farm), who\u2019s the unofficial queen of tradwife content \u2013 through the lens of pop culture and American history. <\/span><span>To some, being a bad mum looks like <\/span><span>EmRata when she posted a photo holding her baby like a bag. Or the <\/span>\u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@alexbabii97\">doughnut mum<\/a>\u2019 who dared to post a video of her feeding her one-year-old <span>three mini powdered doughnuts for breakfast. But <\/span>the \u2018bad mum\u2019 title is also\u00a0<span>how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecut.com\/article\/trump-smears-renee-good-wine-mom.html\">America\u2019s right defended why Renee Good was shot and killed<\/a> by ICE officer Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis last month. In the US, motherhood has become a cultural battleground \u2013 a quiet war that takes place between sourdough recipes and babies with emojis covering their faces online.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The internet clearly has mummy issues. <\/span><span>To understand why, we\u00a0<\/span><span>spoke to Dickson about what we project onto mumfluencers, or other women who exist online, and how <\/span><span>motherhood is being weaponised across the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>What made you want to write about bad mums?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson:<\/strong><span> I don\u2019t think of the book as about motherhood, but more about being a woman in the United States and all of the insane expectations that people put on you as a result. It\u2019s impossible to be a \u201cgood mother\u201d and, in this country, it\u2019s this way because of design. The more inadequate, frustrated and helpless women feel, the less likely they are to complain about how unsupported and isolated they are. I was interested in how the culture applies the \u2018bad mother\u2019 label to any woman who deviates from societal expectations of them, or dares to view motherhood less as a calling and more as a form of labour, in relation to influencers. Also, I just wanted to write about MILFS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"e8acba60-8970-42e9-bba1-b3ec01336da0\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1400\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436738.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.65\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"One Bad Mother\" class=\"img\" height=\"2159\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436738.jpg\" width=\"1400\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"credit\">Simon &amp; Schuster<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>What role does social media play in reinforcing these expectations of women?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>Social media makes parents feel like they\u2019re parenting in a panopticon. You\u2019re constantly being watched, and you&#8217;re constantly watching others. Since starting this book, I\u2019ve heard of so many instances of women who have been reported to CPS because their commenters saw their videos and thought their houses weren\u2019t clean, or they didn&#8217;t like the way their child held a pencil, or they didn&#8217;t like what they were serving their child for breakfast. There are dire consequences to being shamed on the internet, and it\u2019s even worse if you\u2019re a woman of colour or come from a marginalised background.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s as if, as soon as anyone posts their child, they are no longer a human, but part of the general mumfluencer content category.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>People who grew up on the internet are used to the flattening of identity, where we see people on the internet as narratives rather than fully fledged people. This isn\u2019t specific to mothers, but we\u2019re also already trained not to think of mothers as people with individual identities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>I want to go through a few more divisive motherhood debates online with you, if you\u2019ll let me. What do you think about the childless people who post complaining about the babies next to them on the planes versus those in the comments informing them that being around children, in fact, is part of living within a community?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>I don\u2019t even think that\u2019s about children specifically at all. The word community is key to that one, because the internet has transformed us all into thinking about ourselves as individual brands who are driven by self-interest. Because children have higher needs than other adults, I think children are kind of the sacrificial lamb for that conversation, when actually the internet has made us all less empathetic. That\u2019s my working theory.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>I think that tracks. So what about the babies that are posted with the emojis over their faces?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>In the book, I write about Maya Knight, who is the mother of two twin daughters. She started posting when they were really little, but she was constantly getting scrutinised for anything she posted. One day, she decided to stop posting her kids\u2019 faces, and everyone jumped down her throat immediately. They hated her for posting her kids, and hated her for not. You really can\u2019t win. I don\u2019t think that one has even really been broached in an intelligent, thoughtful way at all yet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>If everyone is too hard on mothers online in general, is all mum criticism equal, then?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>No, obviously not. I think Ruby Franke is a good example, where people on the internet were seeing this woman post really terrifying content and were raising red flags for years and years until the authorities finally did something about it. That\u2019s obviously a person who merited the criticism that she was receiving. And, even for less extreme examples, I think there are ways to post children that absolutely violate their consent or privacy and warrant criticism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>We\u2019re witnessing the laundering of evil through mothers, and we\u2019re also seeing it the other way around<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>I think a lot of young people are also rightfully concerned about tradwifes growing as a content category under this right-wing swing. How can we differentiate between those who enjoy posting their lives at home and those with more sinister intentions?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson:<\/strong><span> It\u2019s difficult. Tradwives are something I have complicated feelings about, and, again, it\u2019s something where the conversation merits more nuance. A lot of these women, like Ballerina Farm, were raised in very conservative environments. It\u2019s a woman who is clearly ambitious and educated, but was also taught her entire life to live within these very limited circumstances. So, figuring out a way to carve a space for herself within that and monetise it to tremendous effect is a pretty impressive achievement, regardless of whether or not you think her content is good or not. Or whether you think her content is helpful to society, which I don\u2019t. What scares me more than her as a person is that there\u2019s such an audience for her content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>I definitely see the appetite for the content against a backdrop of a general questioning of what the \u2018you can have it all\u2019 brand of feminism <em>really<\/em> did for young women. To some, it\u2019s led them to lean more towards conservative gender roles and tradition. How have mumfluencers become a vehicle for this?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>I think that\u2019s played a huge role in why you see tradwives become so successful, and it\u2019s a huge part of the reason why you see the womanosphere on the rise today. Women like Alex Clark and Candace Owens are espousing these very traditional values of femininity and discouraging women from buying into the \u2018have it all\u2019 myth. And I say myth because I think it is a myth. I came of age during a time when that\u2019s exactly what I was told: that everything would be like Miranda from <\/span><em><span>Sex and the City<\/span><\/em><span>. People are taking up and realising that having a child has become a privilege, and it\u2019s basically impossible in the\u00a0 United States to own a house. They\u2019re revolting against that, and I understand it, but, unfortunately, the pendulum has swung so quickly and so dramatically in the other direction. They are seeing how women like me are burnt out and tearing their hair out all the time, and they\u2019re like, \u2018We don\u2019t want that. I\u2019d rather get married at 23 and pick my own produce.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>When writing the book, did you find yourself empathising with these women in unexpected ways?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>Definitely. I think it\u2019s the journalist\u2019s job to have empathy. There was no way to write this book without some degree of empathy for the women I was writing about, even when that was difficult, as it was in my chapter about the anti-vax and MAHA mothers. I\u00a0 have interviewed a lot of those women throughout my career, and I find basically every single one of their beliefs abhorrent. I consider them in a lot of ways predatory, but I also consider them victims. In a lot of cases, they are parents of children who are chronically ill, and the medical system has failed or disregarded them. They\u2019re looking for answers, and that\u2019s something we should all be incredibly sympathetic to, even if we are horrified by how they\u2019re channelling that pain.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why do you think motherhood as an identity has become this cultural battleground right now in America, specifically?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>It\u2019s really scary to watch, honestly. So much of what we\u2019re seeing now reminds me of the stuff I was researching that was happening in the country years ago. The Right is framing women, specifically white women, as the guardians of future generations and the preservation of traditional family values. It\u2019s something the Klan was doing at the turn of the century. Women were pivotal in the Klan. They were basically the ones doing the fundraising, organising the community and putting a friendly face on the vicious hatred that their husbands were spouting. And that\u2019s kind of what you see happening again right now with someone like Katie Miller and her podcast. Here\u2019s a white, millennial mother who is talking about fitness and eating clean, while she\u2019s married to one of the most evil men in the country, who&#8217;s responsible for what&#8217;s going on in Minneapolis. We\u2019re witnessing the laundering of evil through mothers, and we\u2019re also seeing it the other way around.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>How does this \u2018laundering of evil\u2019 apply to who the far-right consider bad mums?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ej Dickson: <\/strong><span>I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve seen the \u2018wine mum\u2019 discourse, but a lot of mothers in Minneapolis who were radicalised by the death of Alex Pretti and Renee Good have been on the front lines and putting their bodies on the line. These aren\u2019t necessarily all liberal women, but they\u2019re just rightfully absolutely horrified by what&#8217;s happening. The Right is noticing, and they\u2019ve started smearing these mums as drunk wine mums or as part of an antifa gang, using these women\u2019s motherhood against them in really obviously misogynistic and belittling ways. So, we see motherhood become a symbol on both sides, really. It\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the weaponisation of motherhood against women in this country.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69592\/1\/does-the-internet-have-mummy-issues-ej-dickson-investigates-one-bad-mother&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-0-1760-1173\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436680.jpeg&#8221;] The Florida Project (2017 February\u00a0 9,\u00a0 2026 Life &amp; Culture \/ Q+A Life &amp; Culture \/ Q+A Does the internet have mummy issues? Ej Dickson investigates We spoke to the author of One Bad Mother about MILFS, tradwives, and how motherhood is being weaponised for the \u2018laundering of evil\u2019 across the US [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,76],"class_list":["post-1760339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1760339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1760339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1760339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1760339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}