HeyJaredBad Mothers
'Bad' mothers are regular women who subvert the one-dimensional patriarchal ideal of womanhood. But some really are just bad.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 14
- Latest publication
- Sep 24, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 9, 2026
Latest issues
You’re Childfree, But Your Partner Has Kids — A Mysterious Third Direction You Can Go (opens the original)
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This week I’m sharing a guest essay by Yoda Olinyk, author of The Monday Club. Her essay addresses a topic I think we don’t discuss enough — grief after a wanted abortion, an unwanted pregnancy. The battle for reproductive rights leaves no room for nuance, but Yoda beautifully weaves these emotions with those of embracing a relationship with the child of the man she loves. I hope you enjoy it. We’d only been dating for a few months when he told me he was ready for me to meet his daughter. We wer
Politics Meets Feminism with Dick Polman and Monica Cardenas (opens the original)
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This month and I discussed:Natalie Harp, including Scott Jennings’ and conservative media’s unhinged response, in which they claimed the left was framing her as a sex object and political punchline. The absurdity of anyone defending Trump to also pretend to have an interest in defending womenThe <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/style/jennifer-hegset
I left the U.S. ten years ago (opens the original)
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In case you missed it, I was live last night with , discussing MAGA women and the prescience of the novel It Can’t Happen Here. Watch here. This essay is an updated version of the one I published on my five year anniversary of moving to London, and touches on some of the same themes as this one published in <a href="https://medium.com/the-virago/all-my-relationships-were-a-mess-until-
September Book Club: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn (opens the original)
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A reminder that I’ll be live Tuesday with Dick Polman to talk about the latest disappointing and offensive actions from the Trump Administration.set a reminderLast week and I hosted our live book club, this time to discuss Nick Flynn’s 2004 memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. Paid subscribers can now watch the full discussion live. Some clips are available on the Bad Mothers YouTube
These Trump women could have been our allies (opens the original)
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Don’t miss book club next week! You can join me and live on Substack, Tuesday at 2PM EDT/7PM BST. “My Jenny, my wife, Jennifer, changed my life, saved me, there’s just no doubt about it.”“Keep my wife’s name the hell out of your mouth.”These are the types of things we hear from men on the right about the women in their lives: performative devotion or “tough guy” protector (Pete Hegse
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