Why Being A Mom Is SO Hard Now... | Compilation - video Dailymotion

The Take Film TV Movie

To celebrate Mother's Day, we're diving into the highs and lows of being a modern mother, from social media pressure, to the stay-at-home vs working mom battle and beyond!  In this compilation...

Transcript

00:00:00The millennial mom is a master of juggling, up on all the trends, and totally exhausted,

00:00:05expected to be a superwoman as the bare minimum. So who is this modern mother,

00:00:10on screen and in real life? She's balancing a lot. The millennial mom is more likely to be

00:00:16in the workplace, and to have lots of demands on her in addition to basic mom tasks.

00:00:21I don't want to be just a mom. I want a career. I want a life.

00:00:26I want to be seen as a person. But this means she's working at least two full-time jobs,

00:00:32because stats show that even working moms today spend more time with their kids than previous

00:00:38generations of stay-at-home moms ever used to. Even so, she feels guilty. Half of U.S. moms say

00:00:44working makes it harder for them to be good parents. She's more likely to be single. Single moms used to

00:00:49carry an unfair stigma, but a 2016 census revealed there were more single or unmarried moms than ever.

00:00:55You sure that's it? You can order more. I told you anything you want.

00:01:00I actually want extra bacon.

00:01:02She has fewer kids, so more time to obsess about how she's raising each one.

00:01:07And she's generally nurturing and attentive to her kids' emotions, because gentle parenting is in.

00:01:13Listen, you can't smack mommy. It's not very kind.

00:01:17But she's also nervous, shaped by a permanently online culture of anxiety, appearance, and parenting as achievement.

00:01:24No, baby. Oh, baby. Go. No more.

00:01:27You have completely spiked their blood sugar love.

00:01:31Most strikingly, compared to generations past, she's a brand.

00:01:34The millennial figure of the shiny momfluencer doesn't choose between work and motherhood.

00:01:39She combines the two.

00:01:41I'm going to share my zucchini chocolate chip cookie recipe.

00:01:44Your kids will never know. They're eating a full serving of veggies.

00:01:47But her rise has established new higher-than-ever standards for the average millennial mom,

00:01:53even when that's not her paying job.

00:01:55Millennial moms have access to more enlightened resources and products than ever,

00:01:59and endless role models for raising their kids any way they might choose.

00:02:03So why do they seem so overwhelmingly stressed out and time-starved?

00:02:08Here's our take on the millennial mom and how today's film and TV portrayals

00:02:12capture an image-obsessed and fear-based parenting culture that's making her life miserable.

00:02:20Our image of the millennial mom is almost indistinguishable from a quintessential figure of our era,

00:02:26the momfluencer.

00:02:27The runaway popularity of figures like Louise Pentland, Amber Fillerup-Clark,

00:02:31Naomi Davis, or Taza, and Heather B. Armstrong has led to a generation of non-famous young moms

00:02:37determined to get everything right and make raising kids look beautifully Instagram-worthy in the process.

00:02:43It was pretty difficult to film and be taking care of a newborn,

00:02:47but I tried to do my best to sort of share, like, the real, like, hour-to-hour.

00:02:50At first, momfluencer culture felt like a gift to many.

00:02:54The internet is teeming with personalities who can offer relatable tips,

00:02:57introduce moms to new parenting approaches that resonate for them,

00:03:01sell products for literally any issue,

00:03:03and open up discussions with other moms who can honestly answer questions for each other.

00:03:08But the irony is many people who follow the momfluencer today have pretty mixed feelings about her,

00:03:13if they're not outright hate-watching.

00:03:15Since this literal two-year-old now has a brand, now has an aesthetic, like,

00:03:19if she breaks from that, her mom is going to lose profit.

00:03:24In 2021, Sarah Peterson wrote an article for Harper's called

00:03:27Momfluencer Content Enrages Me, Why Can't I Look Away?

00:03:31about the way momfluencer content is woefully out of touch with what early motherhood is really like.

00:03:36In 2022, The Guardians, Rhiann and Lucy Coslett,

00:03:39wrote about the inescapable toxic pull of the momfluencer

00:03:43and how the highly curated ideal of these accounts is damaging to the mental health of moms

00:03:48who feel inadequate for not living up to it.

00:03:50You are doing one of the hardest jobs in the world.

00:03:53It's likely people are going to judge you for it, no matter how you go about parenting.

00:03:57There's also the important question of whether many momfluencers are even truly good moms

00:04:02or qualified in any way to be dishing out expert-like advice.

00:04:06Today, the first wave of momfluencer kids, so-called Truman babies,

00:04:10are getting older and not all are so happy about being brought up in the public eye.

00:04:15Mommy blogger Christy Tate courted huge controversy when she revealed

00:04:18that she refused her daughter's request to have content written about her taken down.

00:04:23One teenager objected so much to being part of her parents' YouTube channel

00:04:27that she got it demonetized, while others have spoken out

00:04:30on how being turned into content affected their upbringing.

00:04:33As a kid, there was no sense of privacy in the home.

00:04:37So while in recent years, many aspects of momfluencer culture

00:04:40have been assumed to be aspirational,

00:04:43a lot of these ethical and developmental questions are only just starting to get answered.

00:04:47Go like this.

00:04:48No, mom, I'm actually seriously crying.

00:04:50No, I know, but go like this.

00:04:51I've heard the video.

00:04:52And it's important to remember that just because someone on Instagram

00:04:55is popular and sounds authoritative

00:04:57doesn't mean their parenting advice is truly proven in the long term.

00:05:02In Snatched from Mommy, it's this perception of the influencer

00:05:05as being a bad mom that makes her a target

00:05:07and leads to her daughter being kidnapped.

00:05:10You're so selfish.

00:05:11Do you ever think of your baby?

00:05:13In 2018's A Simple Favor, Stephanie's cutesy, perfect mommy vlog

00:05:17doesn't line up at all with her lonely, less-than-exciting day-to-day.

00:05:21I have never understood these silly, hurtful divisions

00:05:25between working moms and stay-at-home moms.

00:05:27Honestly, I have found it difficult to make friends with either.

00:05:30And in researching the role, Anna Kendrick talked about

00:05:32finding mommy vloggers creepy

00:05:34because of how artificial the depiction of motherhood seemed.

00:05:37Most centrally, the whole mindset of being too oriented

00:05:40around what's picture-worthy or shareable about your parenting

00:05:43can get in the way of your ability to give your children

00:05:46what they need most, undivided attention.

00:05:48There's growing research on the negative impact

00:05:50that permanently online moms are having on their kids.

00:05:54Erica Christakis writes that while parents are more physically present

00:05:57than ever before, they're less emotionally attuned.

00:06:00In a sense, the momfluencer grows out of today's achievement-oriented parenting

00:06:05on overdrive, and the need to turn every moment into positive feedback

00:06:09that you're doing it right.

00:06:13So, zooming out, do millennial moms just need to relax?

00:06:17The helicopter parenting concept has been around since the 80s.

00:06:21To describe how many millennials themselves

00:06:23were raised with hovering protective parents.

00:06:25Stop being a helicopter, mom.

00:06:27You're hovering.

00:06:28But many now complain that millennial parents

00:06:30take this approach to a whole new extreme.

00:06:33As Laura Norkin notes,

00:06:34millennials widely get roasted for being too intense and try hard.

00:06:38But this blaming tone ignores the fear-based online ecosystem

00:06:41and capitalist factors that are constantly pushing millennial parents

00:06:45to worry about everything

00:06:46and telling them they're doing something wrong if they don't.

00:06:49So it doesn't matter how hard you try to be a good mom,

00:06:52there will always be someone out there to tell you otherwise,

00:06:55that you're not a good mom, you're not trying hard enough,

00:06:57and everything under the sun.

00:06:59Alarmist articles highlight the most unlikely freak accidents as risks to fear.

00:07:03Online discussion forums are dominated by self-righteous or paranoid voices.

00:07:08A financially incentivized medical system tests pregnant women

00:07:11for an ever-expanding array of problems before the baby's even here.

00:07:15And every product you can buy is covered with legal disclaimers

00:07:19about why it shouldn't be considered safe for a baby to ever be around.

00:07:23All of this benefits companies who want to sell scared parents

00:07:26on tons of products they don't actually need.

00:07:29You're weird, Alicia, with your homemade diaper bag.

00:07:32Baby Mabel likes her bag.

00:07:33Baby Mabel does not like that bag.

00:07:35She doesn't like anything yet, because she's a baby.

00:07:37But it undermines parents' crucial ability to trust themselves

00:07:40and tap into their own instincts about what's right for their kids.

00:07:44Increasingly, articles today explore whether the atmosphere of fear

00:07:48infecting parents is truly rooted in a deeper economic anxiety,

00:07:52because in our world, financial stability is becoming ever more competitive to achieve.

00:07:57You looks at how the shiny momfluencer and fear-based parenting culture

00:08:01are actually connected through the character of Sherry,

00:08:04who's built her brand on being a perfect mom

00:08:06who has all the answers on how to raise kids.

00:08:08Her blog-slash-podcast-slash-brand, Heart-Shaped Mistakes,

00:08:13Kill Me, is a mecca of humble bragging and superiority,

00:08:16fronting as hard-earned wisdom.

00:08:18But on closer inspection, Sherry's seemingly poised and unflappable perfection

00:08:22comes from a place of fear.

00:08:24She does things like monitor her kids' vital signs via an app,

00:08:27something that ostensibly should give more peace of mind,

00:08:30yet in fact creates more anxiety.

00:08:32Sherry, they're sugar-free.

00:08:34There's sugar in raspberries.

00:08:36We don't want them to eat fruit.

00:08:37New mother and serial killer, Love,

00:08:39is openly disdainful of Sherry's fake brand

00:08:42and hardly seems like the kind of person

00:08:44who'd get sucked into that whole culture.

00:08:46Like, I need her approval.

00:08:48Just like I'm going to stab her in the eye.

00:08:49Still, immediately after seeing Sherry,

00:08:52Love is infected with seeds of self-doubt,

00:08:54and when she comes home to a messy kitchen

00:08:56and her baby's crying, she lashes out.

00:08:59Just f***ing let me do it!

00:08:59Since there's inherently so much anxiety in being a first-time mom,

00:09:03even small signals that you're failing to measure up

00:09:06can be powerful triggers of stress.

00:09:07On film and TV, momfluencer portrayals can capture

00:09:10how the fear-based, perfection-seeking version of this figure

00:09:13is pretty joyless.

00:09:14In Lena Dunham's 2018 series Camping,

00:09:17minor Instagram personality Catherine's obsessive worry

00:09:20and need for control makes her a miserable presence

00:09:23for her child and pretty much everyone else around her.

00:09:26I am the only certified lifeguard present,

00:09:29so please keep an eye on me!

00:09:31Meanwhile, Dunham's more famous show, Girls,

00:09:34explored how cultural anxiety infects women

00:09:36even before motherhood begins.

00:09:38When Hannah tells people she's pregnant in the final season,

00:09:41she's not greeted with congratulations and excitement,

00:09:44but instead with questions about whether or not

00:09:46she'll be any good at it.

00:09:47I'm going to say this to your face,

00:09:50because no one else will have the guts to.

00:09:52Great.

00:09:53You're going to be a terrible mother.

00:09:54In trying, the millennial mom anxiety is thrown into sharper focus

00:09:58given the more relaxed attitude displayed by a certain type of millennial dad.

00:10:02When the couple is trying to have a child and then adopt,

00:10:05Jason deals with everything calmly.

00:10:07Esther, meanwhile, can be like a coiled spring,

00:10:09constantly expecting failure or worrying about how she'll be as a mother.

00:10:13Jason, we can't get a criminal record,

00:10:15they won't give us a kid, it was in the leaflets.

00:10:17There's a similar dynamic between Hayley and Dylan in Modern Family,

00:10:20While she is the frightened, expectant mother wrestling with these questions

00:10:24of whether she'll be good,

00:10:25he gets to be the excited puppy dog,

00:10:27eager to throw himself into parenting and see what happens.

00:10:30Why aren't you freaking out?

00:10:32Because this is a good thing.

00:10:34Isn't it?

00:10:35I...

00:10:35I don't know.

00:10:37Certainly today, we have more high-profile examples of dads

00:10:41who take a more detail-oriented, organized, and hands-on approach to parenting.

00:10:45But the reality is still that moms are overwhelmingly doing more of the domestic and child care work.

00:10:51All this perpetuates long-standing cliches of the mom as the anxious, serious one

00:10:55stuck with the boring jobs,

00:10:57and the dad who has someone else to do the worrying for him

00:11:00as the fun parent swooping in for playtime.

00:11:02Overall, the picture explains why some of the most popular rising mom content

00:11:07on TikTok and YouTube is funny,

00:11:09helping moms relieve their stress through relatable jokes about how hard mom life is,

00:11:13how it's an experience of constant failure and mess,

00:11:16and how hilarious kids actually are if you calm down and enjoy the ride.

00:11:21Don't spend two hours on activity for your tutor role that they won't give a shit about.

00:11:25At all.

00:11:26Give them one of your Amazon boxes.

00:11:27It'll be a two-for-one.

00:11:28Something for mom, something for baby.

00:11:34Motherhood used to be seen as the beginning of something,

00:11:37but for some millennials, it feels like an ending,

00:11:39an end of youth, freedom, and any dreams you may have had

00:11:42that now seem incompatible with having a kid.

00:11:44A lot of the anxieties felt by millennial moms are linked to identity.

00:11:48If I'm a mother now, does that mean I can't be something else?

00:11:51Society is telling me that I can, and even should,

00:11:54but that feels like another impossible pressure

00:11:56when I have no support and no time.

00:11:59What's the trick to making all this work?

00:12:01I'm trying to stay positive.

00:12:03It's just...

00:12:04having it all seems a little...

00:12:08impossible.

00:12:08In Work and Moms, the feeling seems to be that while you can be both a mother

00:12:13and have a job, you also have to be realistic about your limitations and time.

00:12:17When Kate goes back to work as a high-powered PR executive,

00:12:20she's both distracted at work and missing important moments from her child's life.

00:12:25So rather than lying to herself that she can have it all

00:12:28and excel at everything simultaneously, she has to make sacrifices.

00:12:31Yes, this is Kate.

00:12:32Uh, no, I'm not, uh, busy at all.

00:12:36For Audrey, in The Letdown, it's not so much work that she struggles to return to,

00:12:40but the previous normalcy of her life.

00:12:43Simple things like drinking caffeine or having a social life

00:12:46are now not as available to her as they once were.

00:12:48And that's where her anxiety and frustration stem from.

00:12:51All this is tied up with the reoccurring theme of being confronted

00:12:54with other young mothers who seem far more on top of their motherhood than she is.

00:12:58So again, it feels like the key for the millennial mom relaxing into her full self

00:13:03is to let go of the idealized image that doesn't match the difficult reality.

00:13:07I've done H-Express.

00:13:08Then how do you know that she's getting her 60 meals with each fee?

00:13:11You must be exhausted, darling. You've never done the pump and dump.

00:13:14The what?

00:13:14A more positive look at the millennial mom experiences comes in Jane the Virgin.

00:13:19Jane's life is changed overnight by the arrival of a child,

00:13:22but she approaches the journey with optimism and positivity.

00:13:25And while she still has to work at balancing her other life with her duties as a mom,

00:13:30she doesn't give up on her dreams and continues to pursue them.

00:13:33We're delighted to inform you that you've been accepted into our graduate writing program.

00:13:37And now we're dancing because mommy got into grad school.

00:13:42Rather than being a distraction, her baby becomes an inspiration,

00:13:45another reason to live the life she's always wanted to.

00:13:48Instead of perpetuating the pressures to be a great or perfect mom,

00:13:52perhaps more millennials should focus on being the good enough mom,

00:13:55a term coined by British pediatrician Donald Winnicott all the way back in 1953.

00:14:00Not only does this lower impossible standards for moms,

00:14:03but Winnicott also found it benefits the child,

00:14:06including by helping them shed the initial perception of the mom as faultless.

00:14:11Ultimately, kids absorb what their parents feel and model,

00:14:14and infecting young people with an attitude of constant fear and avoiding mistakes at all costs

00:14:19isn't really the end goal most of today's moms truly want.

00:14:22So maybe cutting herself some slack is the best thing the millennial mom could do for her and her kids.

00:14:29The housewife versus the career woman.

00:14:31The stay-at-home versus the working mom.

00:14:34I'm just going to say it.

00:14:35There's tension between you two.

00:14:36Bam, it's out there.

00:14:37It's a divide that's well-entrenched in pop culture.

00:14:41In movies and TV, the housewife is condescended to, yet revered.

00:14:45The working woman is vilified, yet admired.

00:14:48Yet today, this divide is breaking down,

00:14:50and it's becoming clear that the binary was kind of invented and exaggerated in the first place,

00:14:56as we can see in insightful contemporary shows like Big Little Lies and Fleischman is in Trouble.

00:15:00You know I always liked you.

00:15:03I just thought you didn't like me.

00:15:05Today, the split often falls along economic and class lines,

00:15:09since many families can't afford to have one parent not work.

00:15:13But since the pandemic, with remote and hybrid work becoming more common,

00:15:16and daily expenses more unaffordable,

00:15:18women are embracing more fluidity in terms of whether they're working full-time,

00:15:22part-time, or moving in and out of the workforce.

00:15:24And it's exciting that this stay-at-home versus working binary is fading.

00:15:28For too long, women have been pigeonholed into these caricaturish,

00:15:32loaded ideas of identity that prioritize capital and a social order over humanity and nuance.

00:15:37Here's our take on how the popular stay-at-home and working mom stereotypes are largely made up,

00:15:42and how pitting these categories against one another hurts women and feminism everywhere.

00:15:47Why do we need a mom's night out?

00:15:48How do we bear to admit that we're in a cage?

00:15:50We need to be liberated.

00:15:52In media and pop culture, we often see a dichotomy between the high-powered businesswoman and the housewife.

00:16:01The successful businesswoman is often viewed with awe and some fear,

00:16:05but she's also frequently portrayed as being lonely and sad in her personal life due to all she's had to sacrifice.

00:16:11Just imagine what they're going to write about me.

00:16:14The dragon lady, career-obsessed.

00:16:18Snow Queen drives away another Mr. Priestley.

00:16:21The housewife or a stay-at-home mom is typically painted as wholesome, but pitied in a different way.

00:16:27There's a sense that her individual, interesting life ended when she sacrificed all of that to have a family.

00:16:33My life can be very stressful, and I have found a way to cope with that stress.

00:16:40It's just such a great release.

00:16:43But neither characterization is fully true.

00:16:46Women don't suddenly lose their individual identity when they stop working a paid job,

00:16:51and mothers who prioritize career don't lack feeling or concern for their children.

00:16:55Keeping track of your kids from afar is not easier.

00:16:58Entrusting them to a stranger is not easier.

00:17:01The 2022 show, Fleischman is in Trouble, gives us a wake-up call to how both the working mom and stay-at-home mom are in trouble,

00:17:08because they're not sufficiently supported by contemporary society.

00:17:11It's commenting on the age-old rivalry, which has recently resurged on TikTok and media in general.

00:17:17I haven't been able to successfully get that balance between work and my life at home, and I feel so bad.

00:17:28And at first the show, based on the 2019 novel by Taffy Broaddester-Akner, sets up the familiar tropes.

00:17:34Rachel is a working mom and is vilified as not a good mom or a good person because she works too much and is preoccupied with money and status.

00:17:43On the other end of the spectrum, there's the stay-at-home mom, Libby,

00:17:47who's bored and feels the housewife life isn't a reflection of her full creative self.

00:17:51I miss longing.

00:17:54I miss desire.

00:17:58And it's not Adam.

00:17:59Both women are judged by their husbands, Rachel by her ex, Toby, because she doesn't put her family first,

00:18:05and Libby by her husband, Adam, because she's not satisfied with their privileged life.

00:18:10How was your day in the actual world?

00:18:13You didn't miss anything.

00:18:15Real world is highly overrated.

00:18:18How was everything here in paradise, huh?

00:18:19Libby, who happens to be one of Toby's oldest friends, initially sees Rachel through Toby's eyes as a cold, money-obsessed egocentrist.

00:18:27Was it being a total f***er?

00:18:30Whoa.

00:18:31Elizabeth, uh, maybe.

00:18:33I hated her.

00:18:34I mean, I, I, I, I, I, can I, can I say that?

00:18:37But as the show goes on, we see that the story is, as Inku Kang writes in The New Yorker, about ditching the cliches.

00:18:44We eventually empathize with Rachel as we learn more about her unconventional childhood,

00:18:49traumatic delivery of her first child, and difficult postpartum experience.

00:18:53We also see how much she loves her career, as well as how hard she's had to work to make it,

00:18:58a struggle her ex-husband never had to go through, due to his gender and comfortable upbringing.

00:19:03I choose money over everything.

00:19:04Yeah.

00:19:05No, I choose, I choose safety over everything.

00:19:09The only reason you can't see that is because you've always had those things.

00:19:12Fleischman states that it's just a fact being a working mom is harder because it's literally two full-time jobs.

00:19:18The culture was so condescending to stay-at-home mothers that we allowed them the fiction that being a mother was the hardest job in the world.

00:19:25Well, it wasn't.

00:19:27Having an actual job and being a mother is the hardest job in the world.

00:19:31Years of constant striving lead Rachel to a nervous breakdown.

00:19:35I haven't heard from you in three weeks.

00:19:36Meanwhile, Libby is fighting against an equally powerful cultural caricature of the stay-at-home mom,

00:19:42someone whose life is comfortable but feels inconsequential, repetitive, and small.

00:19:47Libby looks back nostalgically on her college days because, back then, she was a writer, seeking exciting adventures.

00:19:54In the end, the way that both Rachel and Libby's stories find resolution is through softening their differences.

00:19:59Libby is the one who listens to Rachel's story and comes to see her in a more nuanced light.

00:20:04There are no real villains in life. Not really. There are no real heroes, either.

00:20:08Reactions to the show also illustrate that many real women feel like they're both a Rachel and a Libby in some ways.

00:20:15Why do you have to choose in the first place? Why are you choosing at all?

00:20:19Like Rachel, they may feel too stressed, overextended, and running on a hamster wheel to keep up with the Joneses.

00:20:25And like Libby, they may feel they have lost touch with some deeper selfhood.

00:20:29Big Little Lies, another series about affluent moms, similarly exposes this working-versus-stay-at-home mom divide,

00:20:36only to reveal how fabricated and unnecessary it is.

00:20:40In the end, being mothers brings these women together in a far deeper way than their current work status separates any of them.

00:20:46If she hadn't tried to take on so much alone, you know, she wouldn't have unraveled, so.

00:20:52She hasn't unraveled. She's a single mom and a widow with two kids. She's done a damn good job.

00:20:58And in reality TV since 2006, the Real Housewives series has inadvertently led the way on breaking down the housewife-versus-working-woman binary in our cultural consciousness.

00:21:08Breakout Housewives stars like Bethany Frankel weren't actually housewives. Frankel wasn't even married at the start.

00:21:14And by now, none of the women are really housewives, as they're getting paid substantial figures to be on the show and frequently using it to pitch their own products.

00:21:22Meanwhile, the explosion of the mommy blogosphere has ushered in the professionalization of the stay-at-home mom.

00:21:29These influencers reflect blurred lines where more women may be spending more time with family without leaving the professional world.

00:21:36And the truth is, moms across the board are feeling more demands from their family.

00:21:40Stats say that even full-time working moms today spend more time with their kids than stay-at-home moms did in the 60s.

00:21:47While many feel unsatisfied and or overwhelmed choosing either the housewife or working mom lifestyle, trying to do both can also be a trap.

00:21:59I have two lives and I don't have time to enjoy either one of them.

00:22:02Fleischman basically argues that they are two sides of the same coin in our modern capitalist society.

00:22:08At first, we're led to think Fleischman's story is about Toby.

00:22:11The narrator Libby becomes obsessed with Toby's apparently newfound power and freedom after divorce from his crazy type-A working wife.

00:22:19Lately, I couldn't stop thinking about Toby on his dates, coming home alone, coming home with someone.

00:22:24I didn't have a thing for him and I didn't want to be divorced.

00:22:27It's that Toby's life was no longer predictable.

00:22:30But Toby's character is actually what actress Lizzie Kaplan called Trojan Horse for a story about women.

00:22:36Lizzie's obsessed with Toby's freedom because she feels like she has lost her freedom and her power after giving up on advancing her career in a male-dominated field.

00:22:45I can't believe how briefly I held that power and how quickly I gave it away.

00:22:50Rachel and Libby are both dissatisfied and unhinged by the lack of support and understanding for their full humanity.

00:22:57Not only by their seemingly progressive husbands, but also by our society.

00:23:02So any animosity between the Rachels and Libby's of the world is what psychoanalysts call narcissism of small differences.

00:23:09Hypersensitivity to perceived minor differences between actually similar people.

00:23:13You probably know more about them than I do.

00:23:15Driving alike people to scuffle with each other over false differences helps blind them to shared systemic problems,

00:23:21such as the commodification of everything, wealth and equality, and the normalization of profit before people.

00:23:27Children are a crushing responsibility.

00:23:35Happy birthday.

00:23:36So what if moms didn't have to feel constantly on the verge of a breakdown?

00:23:40What if the U.S. joined other countries in improving support for and access to maternal leave,

00:23:46reproductive care, and care work in general?

00:23:48Today's media is getting better at exploring more of the nuances of motherhood,

00:23:55as well as modern issues moms are facing.

00:23:58There's still lots more to portray, though, about what a robust care work focus would actually look like.

00:24:04Care work is defined by sociologist Ito Peng as

00:24:07Whether it's burping your baby or charging a $150 copay to patients,

00:24:21this is all care work that sustains life.

00:24:24But because capitalist economies do not prioritize work that it deems unprofitable,

00:24:28many people, be they new moms caring for their newborn or daughters caring for their aging parents,

00:24:33find their work insufficiently supported or valued.

00:24:36I've given everything I have to this job, and I love it.

00:24:41I do.

00:24:42But I can't dump my family at a moment's notice anymore.

00:24:46We see how the devaluation of care work leads not only to mom struggles,

00:24:50but to loneliness among the elderly,

00:24:52older people being pushed into retiring later,

00:24:54and overall uncertainty about care.

00:24:57It makes the very basic processes of life, birth, childhood, again, and death, fraught with anxiety.

00:25:09In light of these issues, people are looking for new ways to form communities.

00:25:13Dutch students are living rent-free for socializing with the elderly,

00:25:16co-housing communities are helping to prevent social isolation,

00:25:19and some cultures continue intergenerational household living as it's existed for thousands of years.

00:25:25To help circulate these ideas, we need more media to explore different forms of care work.

00:25:30We need more shows and movies where the absence of care,

00:25:33whether it be for the baby, the wife, the community member, or the grandfather,

00:25:37is explored.

00:25:38Real-life moms are sharing more,

00:25:40and it's time to come together about the shared problems facing all of us.

00:25:44Night Bitch is a searing, painful portrait of motherhood,

00:25:47where the titular character just happens to lose herself so dramatically in parenthood

00:25:51that she winds up turning into a dog.

00:25:53It was a hit book in 2021 and has been adapted for the screen by Marielle Heller,

00:25:58with Amy Adams in the lead role.

00:26:00So, does the film live up to the gritty surrealness of the book?

00:26:03And what does it really have to say about the experience of trying to hold onto your own individual personhood

00:26:08while being consumed by motherhood and societal expectations?

00:26:13And could this finally be Amy Adams' Oscar moment?

00:26:16Here's our take.

00:26:17We've never seen motherhood portrayed on screen in quite the way that Night Bitch presents it.

00:26:22While there have been more honest interpretations making their way into the mainstream recently,

00:26:26a lot of these focus on mothers who struggle to bond with their children,

00:26:30or find the weight of maternal expectation crushing.

00:26:33I abandoned them and I didn't see them for three years.

00:26:35The difference with Night Bitch is that it actually shows a far more average setup for the most part.

00:26:41The lead character, mother by day, Night Bitch when her son is sleeping,

00:26:44doesn't shy away from the joy and beauty of motherhood.

00:26:47But it's also open about a real taboo.

00:26:50She finds her life as a stay-at-home mom incredibly difficult.

00:26:54Although she clearly adores him, she doesn't want her entire life to revolve around just her toddler.

00:27:00She finds the day-to-day of parenthood grueling and monotonous.

00:27:03She misses her career as an artist.

00:27:06Yet, she shows up every day and plays with him, engages with him, and makes sure he has a great time.

00:27:11And it doesn't feel like she's masking or faking in these moments, because he really does light up her world.

00:27:17It's more when she's doing the repetitive tasks, making breakfast, trying to get a wired kid to sleep, that she struggles to find joy.

00:27:25And the movie puts forward a really important idea.

00:27:28That maybe, just maybe, every second of parenthood isn't a joy.

00:27:33In this way, it's an accurate depiction of the duality of the experience.

00:27:36Night Bitches' feelings about what motherhood has meant for her don't change how she feels about him.

00:27:42As Katrina Onstad wrote for the New York Times,

00:27:45The movie shows that it's possible to be a good mom, and monstrous, too.

00:27:49Director Marielle Heller says,

00:27:51What I wanted to say about motherhood, as somebody who is a mother, is that you can have complicated feelings about it,

00:27:58and it doesn't mean that you don't want to be a parent.

00:28:00This complexity is rich fodder for Heller and Adams, who often explore the stark dichotomy of parenthood in a single scene.

00:28:08For example, in one scene, Night Bitch encourages her son to make a mess, laying out a huge sheet of paper and assorted paints on the kitchen floor.

00:28:15But while it starts well, he quickly starts pushing the boundaries, smearing paint on the walls, and then running out of the room.

00:28:22And when Night Bitch goes to follow him, she slips in paint and cracks her back on the floor.

00:28:27This scene exemplifies how parenthood defies planning sometimes,

00:28:31how you can go into moments with your kids with the best of intentions, and come out humbled.

00:28:36And it's something that Adams identifies with, too.

00:28:39It does change you so much, and I think that sort of investment in another life,

00:28:44and just like that sort of focus, and the time, and the energy, and the love that you feel, really does transform you.

00:28:51In its tragic exploration of Night Bitch's own mother's story,

00:28:54it's a gifted singer who once believed she might make it in Europe,

00:28:58before she married within her Mennonite community and had children.

00:29:01The film also explores how these patterns are not exclusive to our current generation of mothers.

00:29:06The sacrifice expected from women when they become parents isn't new.

00:29:10But Night Bitch puts forward the idea that we can be the cycle breakers.

00:29:14In Rachel Yoder's book, Night Bitch's husband is aloof and rarely present,

00:29:18as work draws him away from home so often.

00:29:20But when he is there, he's more responsive to Night Bitch than the character in the movie.

00:29:25In the film, he's a little pluckier, angrier, and perhaps more pathetic.

00:29:30When Heller was interviewed about the character, she said,

00:29:33The husband is not an asshole.

00:29:35He's not intending to not get what's happening to her.

00:29:38But there's so little time to even discuss what's happening in your brain when you're parenting.

00:29:43He's clueless to what she's experiencing and going through.

00:29:46But still, the comparison between the two different father characters is striking.

00:29:51In early interviews and reviews, the film was termed a comedy for women and a horror for men.

00:29:56A lot was made of the body horror aspect of the movie.

00:30:00The gruesome moment when Night Bitch pops a cyst on her back and draws out a stringy tail from it.

00:30:05And the fact that the filmmakers chose to show her menstrual blood in the shower.

00:30:08But some of the most horrifying parts of the movie are actually father's tone-deaf platitudes and total ambivalence towards his wife's needs.

00:30:17Although Heller is quick to reassure that her rewrite of Father isn't a villain.

00:30:21There are points.

00:30:22When he fails to be proactive with his son when he is around.

00:30:25When he doesn't support her wish to return back to work.

00:30:28When he dares to ask his wife where the woman he married went.

00:30:31Where we see that the lived reality of so many women who have kids with average non-villainous men is pretty bleak actually.

00:30:40At first, Night Bitch hates taking her son to organized events for kids.

00:30:44She visibly recoils when she realizes she's arrived at the library just as the book babies club is starting.

00:30:49She resents the other mothers who all appear blissful and put together.

00:30:53Kind of like the real life social media mommies who present an outwardly idyllic idea of motherhood on Instagram.

00:30:58But as the movie progresses, mother turns into Night Bitch.

00:31:02Realizes that all the other moms are dogs as well.

00:31:06Not just the moms at the baby groups, but her own mother too.

00:31:10One of the key ideas this movie opens up is that actually, whether we like it or not, motherhood is a bond.

00:31:16And other mothers can be the people who will understand you the best.

00:31:20Not your old college friends, not your husband.

00:31:22But the women you meet in the trenches of parenting.

00:31:24Who maybe don't share your history, but can completely relate to your present.

00:31:29The film is quite different from the novel.

00:31:32Perhaps in part because it's difficult to translate the book's specific style of magical realism on screen.

00:31:38Because we're changing forms, right?

00:31:41So obviously it has to be different in a visual form.

00:31:45I mean, for me, I feel like the essence of the book is in the movie.

00:31:50Although there are definitely some disturbing visuals in the movie, for the most part it's not as graphic.

00:31:55In the book, there are some fairly intense scenes.

00:31:58Where the lead character kills the family cat in her human form, in front of her toddler.

00:32:03In the movie, the death of the cat happens, but off screen.

00:32:06And it's implied that she kills it in her dog form.

00:32:09Director Marielle Heller wrote the script and used her own experiences to add to the novel's plot.

00:32:14So there are more significant changes too.

00:32:16For example, the husband character is a little more useless in the movie.

00:32:20This is framed as both of the characters' fault.

00:32:22She and father haven't really communicated effectively sort of how there would be an equitable division inside of the home.

00:32:29So she's sort of taken on the bulk of responsibility of parenthood.

00:32:33But in the book, when Night Bitch begins to demand he do more with their son,

00:32:37the father character sits up and takes notice.

00:32:40Perhaps as a result of that, in the book, the pair don't actually split up.

00:32:43Their relationship becomes stronger as a result of her boundary setting.

00:32:47And their sexual relationship becomes richer because he embraces her dog side.

00:32:52They don't have a second child in the end of the book, either.

00:32:54This really changed the way the story ended.

00:32:57In the novel, we get this sense that the mother has returned to making art as though it's a primal need.

00:33:02Which she must approach with the same ferocity and energy as she does parenting.

00:33:06The movie, however, ends with mother having a home birth.

00:33:10And being told by her doula that she's going to meet her daughter.

00:33:13Which, although poetic in its symmetry of Night Bitch giving birth to a potential future Night Bitch,

00:33:17did seem to soften the message at the core of the story.

00:33:21Will this be Amy Adams' big Oscar moment?

00:33:24We hope so.

00:33:25Adams uses every string in the bow of her phenomenal acting talent in this movie.

00:33:29At once vulnerable and vicious, sweet and sexy, maternal and manic.

00:33:33We can see her capabilities as she plays the same scene twice, back to back.

00:33:37Delivering an anxious, desperate monologue about parenthood to a former colleague in the supermarket.

00:33:42Which turns out to be imagined when we then see her respond with a wide smile and a nod of assent.

00:33:48Though some of the brutality of the book was lost in the film,

00:33:51Adams becomes genuinely feral-seeming as Night Bitch imagines attacking her husband when he interrupts her alone time.

00:33:58And she fully leans into the moment where the character becomes more dog-like.

00:34:01Eating ravenously off plates with her face, running on all floors through the park.

00:34:06And notably, she was unafraid to become Night Bitch physically too.

00:34:10Even growing out her chin hairs for a scene where she finds herself becoming fuzzy, as her son called it.

00:34:14That is my actual chin hair, so I grew them out for Maury.

00:34:18Yeah.

00:34:18I was like, you know I can grow all of that for you.

00:34:21Another potential indicator is that Adams was awarded the Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Tribute Performer Award back in June.

00:34:28Accolade that's been linked to eventual Oscar winners.

00:34:30But though this created a buzz at the time, film critics claim Night Bitch won't be Adams' well-deserved Oscar win,

00:34:36citing the movie as being too difficult to sell for the Academy Awards.

00:34:41Adams herself told IndieWire that winning an Oscar...

00:34:43It's not something I think about when I approach a role or when I walk on a red carpet,

00:34:47but I'm always happy if the film connects in a way that increases exposure for the film.

00:34:52And it does seem like she has other motives for taking the role.

00:34:55It genuinely feels like this is a character that Adams connects with on a deep level.

00:34:59She, like so many members of the audience, is Night Bitch.

00:35:03Has experienced the soaring highs and crashing lows of motherhood.

00:35:07Recognizes the constant struggle to be a good enough parent.

00:35:10We don't talk about it, and there's this bar of expectation that just keeps moving.

00:35:15And it's just so frustrating, because you never feel like you meet all of the expectations.

00:35:20And I think inside of a world that's very comparative, it's easy to think you're not doing enough.

00:35:26She's mentioned in a lot of the press around the movie that people keep sharing their postpartum stories with her.

00:35:31And this seems to genuinely touch her.

00:35:33Whether she wins awards for the performance or not,

00:35:36she's the perfect embodiment of a character that so many people have loved since she first wagged her tail on the page.

00:35:42When the Night Bitch trailer first dropped, fans of the book worried that the movie wouldn't live up to their expectations.

00:35:48But, as Meredith Blake wrote in the LA Times,

00:35:50The trailer made Night Bitch seem like a wacky mom-com version of Teen Wolf,

00:35:55rather than what it is.

00:35:57A surreal, insightful film about the joys and anguish of motherhood.

00:36:01And the sometimes disturbing ways that becoming a parent can transform women's minds, bodies, emotional lives, and entire sense of self.

00:36:09Although the movie doesn't quite hit the dizzyingly surreal levels that the book does,

00:36:14it's still beautiful.

00:36:15At times heartbreaking, at others hilarious,

00:36:18and always one of the rawest interpretations of motherhood that we've ever seen on screen.

00:36:24We're so powerful.

00:36:28I bet men are terrified of us.

00:36:30The Bad Mom is having a moment in pop culture.

00:36:33To Bad Mom!

00:36:34To Bad Mom!

00:36:35This once taboo and frightening creature has become so popular,

00:36:41she's even got her own movie franchise.

00:36:43Whatever her reasons,

00:36:45this woman is unable, or unwilling,

00:36:47to conform to our society's expectations for mothers to be nurturing,

00:36:51dependable, and unconditionally loving.

00:36:54Across her various forms,

00:36:55the Bad Mom is defined by a few common traits.

00:36:58She's self-centered.

00:36:59Her desires tend to take precedence over her family's needs.

00:37:03I just haven't met anybody who's not completely self-absorbed

00:37:06and impossible to have a conversation with.

00:37:07If that's a veiled criticism about me,

00:37:10I won't hear it, and I won't respond to it.

00:37:13This selfishness makes her irresponsible.

00:37:15Mother, I haven't seen you all week.

00:37:17You're neglecting me.

00:37:18I know, honey, but it's nothing personal.

00:37:20I'm neglecting your brother and sister, too.

00:37:22She doesn't mince words.

00:37:24The Bad Mom can be scathing,

00:37:26even, or especially, toward her own children.

00:37:29Oh, poor you.

00:37:32She's emotionally unstable,

00:37:34given to bouts of anger, depression, or mania.

00:37:36You make me so mad, sometimes I just want to break your neck.

00:37:40Did you get the cookies I sent you?

00:37:42And these episodes might speak to deeper discontent

00:37:45or psychological issues plaguing this woman

00:37:47who's ill-equipped for, or unfulfilled, by traditional motherhood.

00:37:51Don't throw away your dreams for this child.

00:37:54Don't let that man poison your life the way he did mine.

00:37:57Fundamentally, this woman is a rejection

00:37:59of all that the perfect mom is supposed to be.

00:38:03But while the ideal mom is largely a Hollywood fantasy

00:38:06that doesn't exist in real life,

00:38:08the Bad Mom is human and real,

00:38:11and that's what makes her so compelling to watch.

00:38:13However, it would help if you all showed up

00:38:16looking like a loving, supportive family.

00:38:19For how long?

00:38:20Ten minutes tops.

00:38:21See if you can get it down to five.

00:38:23Here's our take on the Bad Mom,

00:38:26the form she takes,

00:38:27and the society that gave birth to her.

00:38:30I'm doing the best that I can.

00:38:32Yeah, that's what makes it even sadder.

00:38:39Generally speaking,

00:38:40we can break the Bad Mom trope down into three types.

00:38:43The outrageous mom,

00:38:45a comedic take on the awful mother,

00:38:47whose cutting cruelty and over-the-top,

00:38:49unfiltered behavior is deliciously enjoyable to watch.

00:38:53Catherine's on bedrest.

00:38:54She's been diagnosed with an incompetent cervix.

00:38:56Well, why should her cervix be any different

00:38:58than the rest of her?

00:38:59The dark side of the mom,

00:39:01a more serious take on the trope,

00:39:03showing us the insecure,

00:39:04emotionally draining,

00:39:06sometimes terrifying side of motherhood.

00:39:08I'm going to break your arm next.

00:39:10And the moms are people too, mom,

00:39:13a relatable version of the trope,

00:39:14which ultimately reminds us

00:39:16that our moms are human beings too.

00:39:18And, like the rest of us,

00:39:19they shouldn't be expected to be perfect.

00:39:22Yesterday I gave Bernard the wrong juice box

00:39:24and he called me a dumb bitch.

00:39:27Let's begin with our first type,

00:39:29the outrageous mom.

00:39:31This first version of the bad mom

00:39:33is, first and foremost, funny.

00:39:35Jesus, whose kid died?

00:39:36Oh, who remembers?

00:39:38Check Pam's blog.

00:39:39But her humor is vicious,

00:39:41as devastating for her children

00:39:42as it is entertaining to us.

00:39:44Come on, I've suddenly lost my amatite.

00:39:47Oh, who's going to believe that?

00:39:49Still, the outrageous mom

00:39:50isn't generally evil.

00:39:52She's just a bit of a jerk.

00:39:54And most of the time,

00:39:55that behavior is reciprocated by her kids.

00:39:58Surprise!

00:39:59We want you to leave!

00:40:01Yes, that's just what I always wanted.

00:40:03Their mutual sniping

00:40:05becomes its own sort of love language.

00:40:07I suppose you think

00:40:08that they're more nurturing than I am.

00:40:11Mother, there are terrorist cells

00:40:13that are more nurturing than you are.

00:40:15There may be cruelty,

00:40:16but most of the time

00:40:17it's softened by genuine love.

00:40:19I'm done disapproving, Jackie.

00:40:22I'm just trying to help.

00:40:25I need to know

00:40:26that someone is looking out

00:40:28for my little boy.

00:40:29The outrageous mom

00:40:30is a caricature.

00:40:32I mean, it's one banana, Michael.

00:40:34What could it cost?

00:40:35Ten dollars?

00:40:36You've never actually set foot

00:40:38in a supermarket, have you?

00:40:39She's the extreme opposite

00:40:41of what we expect

00:40:41a caring, nurturing mother to be.

00:40:44I'm Owen's friend.

00:40:45No one doesn't have a friend.

00:40:48That's because he's shy.

00:40:49No, he's not.

00:40:50He's fat and he's stupid.

00:40:52But the truth is,

00:40:53there's probably something of her

00:40:54in all mothers.

00:40:55Maybe they're not as mean

00:40:57as Lucille Bluth,

00:40:58who adopted a son

00:40:59just to punish one of her other sons,

00:41:01only to use the new one

00:41:02as a handbag.

00:41:03There's just absolutely no purse

00:41:06that would go with this outfit.

00:41:08Got a little pocket there, Anya.

00:41:11Oh, no.

00:41:12Emery board.

00:41:13But very few are as pure

00:41:15as Carol Brady, either.

00:41:17Oh, Jan, we're so proud of you.

00:41:19In reality,

00:41:20most moms are somewhere in between,

00:41:22a little bit of both.

00:41:24What parent has never made

00:41:25a snide remark at her kid's expense?

00:41:27Oh, bravo.

00:41:29You're in a crap harvesting factory, genius.

00:41:31Put a personal goal

00:41:32before her child's feelings.

00:41:34Tell her that I'm canceling the lunch

00:41:36that was supposed to prove

00:41:37there's nothing more important than Catherine

00:41:38because something more important

00:41:40than Catherine has come up.

00:41:41Played favorites.

00:41:42I love all my children equally.

00:41:44I don't care for Joe.

00:41:46Indulged her jealous, manipulative side

00:41:49or a scheme to get her way.

00:41:51What's the matter with you?

00:41:52Your mother's not well.

00:41:53Can't you see that she's faking, Milton?

00:41:56In this respect,

00:41:57the bad mom is perhaps best understood

00:41:59as a liberating response

00:42:00to all of TV's perfect and proper Carol Brady's,

00:42:04who took care of the cleaning and child-rearing

00:42:06while wearing high heels and pearls.

00:42:08I don't like you using words like flippin' ape.

00:42:11Or in later years,

00:42:12the Claire Huxtables,

00:42:13who worked demanding jobs outside the home,

00:42:16yet still found time to be aspirational parents.

00:42:19I'm telling you right now,

00:42:20if anybody, anybody at all,

00:42:22tries to hurt my baby,

00:42:24I'm gonna go out there and stop them.

00:42:26The debuts of unapologetic bad mom Peggy Bundy

00:42:29in Married with Children in 1987

00:42:31and Roseanne in 1988

00:42:33forever challenged this fantasy

00:42:35of the perfect TV mom.

00:42:37Roseanne Connor was raising three children,

00:42:40working her blue-collar job

00:42:41and handling the bulk of the chores.

00:42:43But unlike her predecessors,

00:42:45she made no secret about resenting it.

00:42:47And you think everything gets done

00:42:48by some wonderful wizard.

00:42:50Oh, poop, the laundry's folded.

00:42:52Poop, dinner's on the table.

00:42:53She could be extremely caustic,

00:42:55even hostile toward her kids.

00:42:57Mom, DJ and Darlene are killing each other.

00:43:00What's the bad news?

00:43:01Yet Roseanne was compelling to viewers

00:43:03because, underneath the sarcasm,

00:43:05she was loving and fiercely protective,

00:43:08and owned the fact that

00:43:09she was doing this her own way.

00:43:11You think I've made your life difficult so far?

00:43:14Well, now I'm family,

00:43:16and you've seen the way I treat my family.

00:43:19In addition to being funny,

00:43:20the outrageous mom is strong.

00:43:22She refuses to let her personality

00:43:24be consumed by motherhood.

00:43:26And in this way,

00:43:27she can be empowering.

00:43:28Oh, you know nothing of my powers, do you?

00:43:31The outrageous mom's inappropriate

00:43:33and raw comic relief

00:43:35implicitly mocks all those

00:43:37old-school, goody-two-shoes moms

00:43:39for being too uptight,

00:43:41reactionary, or inauthentic.

00:43:43No, there's not gonna be a film.

00:43:44The only thing Catherine ever finished

00:43:46was an entire ice cream cake.

00:43:48By making light of the darker tendencies

00:43:50that exist, to some extent

00:43:52in all of our mothers,

00:43:53and all of us,

00:43:54she's cathartic.

00:43:56It's an idiot on a scooter at night?

00:43:58It's gotta be Job.

00:44:00Let's give him a scare.

00:44:02The outrageous mom story

00:44:03normalizes and makes us feel okay

00:44:06about the pettiness and imperfections

00:44:08in our own family relationships.

00:44:10What's this?

00:44:11What's happening?

00:44:12It's going to be all right.

00:44:13Why are you squeezing me with your body?

00:44:15It's a hug, Michael.

00:44:16I'm hugging you.

00:44:17Sometimes mothers didn't want to be mothers.

00:44:20Did I tell you any of the odds you were bolted?

00:44:25People made an appointment.

00:44:27Some definitely shouldn't have.

00:44:29And this brings us to our second type

00:44:30of the bad mom trope,

00:44:32the dark side of the mom,

00:44:34inhabited by mothers who show

00:44:36a complete lack of maternal instinct.

00:44:38You're mean!

00:44:39You betcha.

00:44:40Unlike the more playful,

00:44:42loving spitefulness displayed

00:44:43by the outrageous mom,

00:44:44this type of bad mom hurts her children

00:44:47intentionally and irrevocably.

00:44:48I could stick this fork in your eye!

00:44:51And it's rarely fun to watch.

00:44:53This hurt can take the form of neglect.

00:44:56Listen, why aren't you going for a drive?

00:44:58You want to come?

00:44:58No, she won't want to come.

00:45:00You've got better things to do, right?

00:45:02It can be emotional abuse.

00:45:03He's gonna laugh,

00:45:05but they're all gonna laugh.

00:45:07Or the abuse can be physical.

00:45:09Laura's already clean.

00:45:10It's not.

00:45:11Laura's not clean!

00:45:13Look at it!

00:45:14In the very worst cases,

00:45:16it can be all of them.

00:45:17You ruined my f***ing life!

00:45:19You done took my man,

00:45:20you had those f***ing babies,

00:45:22and you got me put off the welfare

00:45:23from running your goddamn stupid-ass mouth!

00:45:25The anger and suffering

00:45:27of the dark side of the mom character

00:45:29can also express itself

00:45:30in more subtly insidious ways.

00:45:32If the clothes from that dry cleaning bag

00:45:34are on the floor of my closet,

00:45:35you're going to be a very sorry young lady.

00:45:37Mad Men's Betty Draper

00:45:38strains to live up to an idealized

00:45:40image of motherhood.

00:45:42Because she enjoys the status

00:45:43and idea of being a housewife,

00:45:45she's in denial of the fact

00:45:47that she hates the reality

00:45:48of being a stay-at-home wife and mom.

00:45:51I'm here all day,

00:45:52alone with them, outnumbered.

00:45:54Betty resents her messy, imperfect kids.

00:45:58Don't you hate getting manure in there?

00:46:00Little children, what's the difference?

00:46:02Taking her frustrations out on them.

00:46:04Don't you dare let me,

00:46:05I'll cut your fingers off.

00:46:06And her behavior demonstrates

00:46:08that emotionally she's still a child herself.

00:46:11Basically, we're dealing with

00:46:12the emotions of a child here.

00:46:14Betty also attempts to pass down

00:46:16the warped, old-fashioned values

00:46:18that make her so miserable.

00:46:19Sally looks fat.

00:46:20Teaching her daughter

00:46:21to prioritize appearance

00:46:23over everything else.

00:46:24Not that I could have killed the kids,

00:46:26but worse.

00:46:27It's...

00:46:28Sally could have survived

00:46:31and gone on living

00:46:32with this horrible scar on her face.

00:46:35The Soprano's matriarch,

00:46:37Livia Soprano,

00:46:38likewise has damaged her children

00:46:40with her toxic world outlook,

00:46:42which prizes the Mafia family's success

00:46:44over her actual family's well-being.

00:46:47She inflicts emotional damage

00:46:48on her offspring largely through guilt.

00:46:50And take the carving knife

00:46:52and stab me here.

00:46:54As with most of the mothers

00:46:55on the dark side of the mom,

00:46:57Livia takes no pleasure in motherhood.

00:46:59Babies are like animals.

00:47:01They're no different than dogs.

00:47:03And because she herself

00:47:05is deeply unhappy,

00:47:06she spreads this misery around.

00:47:08It's all a big nothing.

00:47:11What makes you think you're so special?

00:47:13Livia plays the martyr.

00:47:15I gave my life to my children

00:47:17on a silver platter.

00:47:18But she always puts herself first,

00:47:21even if that means

00:47:22putting a hit out on her own son.

00:47:24I tried to do the right thing by you,

00:47:26you're trying to be what?

00:47:27She doesn't understand you.

00:47:28She's smiling.

00:47:29Look at the look on her face.

00:47:30She's smiling.

00:47:32While these characters diverge

00:47:33in the methods and extent of their abuse,

00:47:36they all represent some ugly truths.

00:47:38Motherhood can exact

00:47:39a strong psychological toll on a woman,

00:47:42exposing insecurities,

00:47:44stirring up primal fears,

00:47:46even in some cases,

00:47:47creating extreme mental disturbance.

00:47:50Livia Soprano,

00:47:51even as she pushes her children away,

00:47:53fears being abandoned.

00:47:54What do you care?

00:47:56Out of sight, out of mind.

00:47:57Carrie entering puberty

00:47:59triggers Margaret White's fear

00:48:01that her daughter will grow up

00:48:02and enter a world she regards

00:48:04as wicked and sinful.

00:48:05First sin was intercourse.

00:48:07I ain't sinful.

00:48:09And whether they would admit it or not,

00:48:11the mothers of Fishtank and Precious

00:48:13are in constant fear

00:48:14because of their precarious lives,

00:48:16and their hardship is only exacerbated

00:48:18by the additional burden of children.

00:48:20Real motherfucking woman's sacrifice!

00:48:21As these traumatized mothers,

00:48:24in turn, traumatized their children,

00:48:26they bequeath their pain to future generations.

00:48:29You had to see a shrink

00:48:30because of the mother you had.

00:48:32Upsetting as these stories can be,

00:48:34especially compared to the comic relief

00:48:36of the outrageous mom,

00:48:38they are genuine experiences of suffering

00:48:40that deserve to be addressed

00:48:41and can be illuminating to share.

00:48:44Mommy Dearest,

00:48:45whose title remains a shorthand for bad moms,

00:48:48is based on Christina Crawford's

00:48:49real-life account of alleged abuse

00:48:51by her mother, star actress Joan Crawford.

00:48:54According to the story,

00:48:56Joan clung to a narcissistic Hollywood ideal

00:48:58of motherhood that left her unable

00:49:00to cope with reality.

00:49:02Beautiful!

00:49:03But bringing her difficult reality to audiences

00:49:06has had a powerful cultural impact

00:49:08counteracting that fantasy.

00:49:10Nothing is killing me!

00:49:12All places are best!

00:49:15Finally, we have our third version of this trope.

00:49:18The Moms Are People Too Mom

00:49:20You cancelled Christmas?

00:49:22I'm not cancelling Christmas,

00:49:24I'm holding it hostage.

00:49:25Unlike the cartoonishly selfish

00:49:27or abusive cautionary tales

00:49:29of Types 1 and 2,

00:49:31the Type 3 example is a complex,

00:49:33realistic depiction of a mom

00:49:35that reminds us she's a human being.

00:49:37At least once a day,

00:49:39I feel like the worst mom in the world.

00:49:41And I cry in my car.

00:49:43This sympathetic portrayal

00:49:44makes the character's frustration

00:49:46and exhaustion understandable.

00:49:48And it illustrates that,

00:49:50on a bad day,

00:49:51anyone can be a quote-unquote

00:49:53bad mom.

00:49:54Do you want to buy her the earrings?

00:49:56Because that's why she's crying,

00:49:57because of six dollar earrings

00:49:59that she has them at home already.

00:50:00This version of the trope

00:50:01is often the protagonist of her story,

00:50:04or else her perspective

00:50:05is heavily featured.

00:50:07We see, from the mom's point of view,

00:50:08everything she's forced to deal with,

00:50:10day in and day out.

00:50:12I've had a really long day.

00:50:14I screwed up my daughter's

00:50:15first day at soccer,

00:50:17and I hand-searched

00:50:18my son's proof for a pen cap.

00:50:21Often, the moms-are-people-too mom

00:50:23begins trying hard

00:50:24to be a really good mother.

00:50:26I love you.

00:50:27I love you.

00:50:28Oh my god, mom.

00:50:29Not so loud.

00:50:30I love my baby so much!

00:50:34God, they hate me.

00:50:36But, like other human beings,

00:50:37she reacts to being mistreated

00:50:39by the people in her life.

00:50:41So sometimes, this type 3 narrative

00:50:43is a bad mom origin story,

00:50:45as when Mila Kunis' Amy in Bad Moms

00:50:48decides to break bad.

00:50:50Let's be bad moms.

00:50:51Lois Wilkerson from Malcolm in the Middle

00:50:53may be overbearing, controlling,

00:50:56even downright bullying.

00:50:57Boys, go to your room!

00:50:59What?

00:50:59What do you mean we're on your side?

00:51:01I said go!

00:51:02But she was once a caring mother

00:51:04to her eldest son,

00:51:05who spurned her love

00:51:06and left her embittered.

00:51:08You two have been at each other's throats

00:51:10since the day he was born!

00:51:13He started it!

00:51:14In Bad Moms,

00:51:15once Amy relaxes,

00:51:17stops holding herself

00:51:18to an impossible standard,

00:51:20and ultimately learns

00:51:21to forgive herself

00:51:22for not being a perfect mom,

00:51:24only then is she finally able

00:51:26to be happy.

00:51:27I think that we as moms

00:51:29do way too much stuff.

00:51:32So Amy discovers

00:51:33that letting herself be a worse mom

00:51:35helps her become

00:51:36a more fulfilled person,

00:51:38which, ironically,

00:51:39makes her a better mom

00:51:40in important ways,

00:51:42like being able to connect

00:51:43and have spontaneous fun

00:51:44with her kids.

00:51:45Free soap.

00:51:46No, honey, don't take that.

00:51:47Oh no, that's some good soap.

00:51:48Take it.

00:51:49Other versions of this type

00:51:50likewise might seem like bad moms

00:51:52by certain rigid standards,

00:51:54but they have unorthodox strengths.

00:51:56Lorelai Gilmore

00:51:57may be irresponsible

00:51:58and immature,

00:52:00behaving more like

00:52:01her daughter's friend

00:52:02than her mother.

00:52:03There's plenty to do tonight

00:52:04that we can be mortified

00:52:05about tomorrow.

00:52:06Yet her spontaneity

00:52:07and honest refusal

00:52:08to sugarcoat reality

00:52:09create an unusually strong bond

00:52:12with Rory.

00:52:13Oh my god, I hate her.

00:52:14Oh, me too.

00:52:15You have no idea

00:52:15who I'm talking about.

00:52:16Solidarity, sister.

00:52:17And while Lady Bird mom

00:52:18Marian McPherson

00:52:19may come across as harsh

00:52:21on her daughter, Lady Bird,

00:52:22You should just go to City College.

00:52:24You know, with your work ethic,

00:52:25just go to City College

00:52:26and then to jail

00:52:27and then back to City College

00:52:28and then maybe you'd learn

00:52:29to pull yourself up

00:52:30and not expect everybody

00:52:31to do everything.

00:52:33This directness is part

00:52:34of a fiercely close

00:52:35and loving mother-daughter bond.

00:52:37Oh honey.

00:52:39Gee.

00:52:41Oh, oh, it's okay.

00:52:44In Sean Baker's

00:52:46The Florida Project

00:52:46and the Oscar-winning

00:52:48Andrea Arnold short

00:52:49Wasp,

00:52:50low-income mothers

00:52:51feel they have no choice

00:52:52but to do things

00:52:53that appear like

00:52:54grossly negligent parenting

00:52:55to the outside world.

00:52:57I just want to talk to him

00:52:58for a little bit longer,

00:52:58all right?

00:52:59If she sees you,

00:53:00she'll f***ing turn us in

00:53:01and you'll get taken away from me.

00:53:02Do you understand?

00:53:03Come on.

00:53:07But these films'

00:53:08sympathetic portrayals

00:53:09make us understand

00:53:10that these young,

00:53:11struggling women

00:53:12who love their kids deeply

00:53:13are faced with

00:53:14an impossible situation.

00:53:16You know I like pepperonis.

00:53:18All of these examples

00:53:20are showcasing

00:53:21well-intentioned

00:53:23but overwhelmed moms

00:53:24who are dealing with

00:53:25major life stresses

00:53:26the best they can.

00:53:28You're a big f***ing c***t,

00:53:30your sister's an asshole,

00:53:31and your other sister's great.

00:53:35Oh my god.

00:53:37Still, like the other

00:53:38two types we've seen,

00:53:40the Moms Are People Too mom

00:53:41decides not to let

00:53:42motherhood totally define her.

00:53:45She's a multifaceted person

00:53:46with opinions and interests

00:53:48and frustrations and ideas,

00:53:50not just a slave to her children.

00:53:52You're my mom.

00:53:53I want you to know

00:53:53if I have sex

00:53:54or if I want to get high.

00:53:56Ah!

00:53:57No, hide things from me.

00:53:59Please.

00:54:00She defends her right

00:54:01to be a human being,

00:54:03and what's so bad about that?

00:54:05As much as these three types

00:54:07of so-called bad moms

00:54:08differ from each other,

00:54:09they can frequently overlap,

00:54:11even in the same character.

00:54:13On Little Fires Everywhere,

00:54:15Elena veers from being

00:54:16the terrifying dark side

00:54:18of the mom

00:54:18What is the matter with you?

00:54:20to the relatable

00:54:21Moms Are People Too mom

00:54:22in the same episode.

00:54:24Oh no, are you okay?

00:54:27What's the matter?

00:54:28The outrageous mom

00:54:29is capable of disarming sincerity.

00:54:31I mean, was I there

00:54:32for every single recital

00:54:33and lacrosse game?

00:54:35No.

00:54:35But I just can't even imagine

00:54:37life without my precious Sterling.

00:54:39The dark side of the mom

00:54:40characters are often victims

00:54:42to be pitied,

00:54:43and they can move us

00:54:44through moments of humor

00:54:45You won't embrace

00:54:47And I am there

00:54:49What the hell are you doing?

00:54:51or compassion

00:54:51Sally, I always worried about you

00:54:53because you marched

00:54:55to the beat of your own drum.

00:54:56But now I know that's good.

00:54:58All these people

00:54:59have also been damaged

00:55:00by their own flawed parents,

00:55:02just as we all have.

00:55:04In the end,

00:55:04every mom has all three

00:55:06of these people in her.

00:55:08She can be hilariously petty,

00:55:10her personality foibles

00:55:11the butt of our jokes.

00:55:13She can be disturbed,

00:55:14trapped by her circumstances

00:55:16and unable to shield her children

00:55:17from her own psychological pain.

00:55:20And she can be playfully reckless

00:55:21and irresponsible,

00:55:23feeling like she just needs

00:55:24to ditch the PTA meetings

00:55:26and have another drink.

00:55:27Mom, are you driving me to-

00:55:28Yeah, yeah, yes.

00:55:30What time?

00:55:30Oh my god, are you drunk?

00:55:32Nobody my wife, coach.

00:55:34You're what?

00:55:35Every time we meet a bad mom,

00:55:37we're invited to reflect

00:55:38on the presumptions we have

00:55:39about parenthood,

00:55:41whether as parents ourselves

00:55:42or as the children of them.

00:55:44The bad mom trope reminds us

00:55:45that humans aren't defined

00:55:47by these roles,

00:55:48or by how they measure up

00:55:49according to fixed ideas

00:55:51of what family should look like.

00:55:53Ideas that,

00:55:53with every passing year,

00:55:55seem increasingly old-fashioned.

00:55:57We laugh at, fear,

00:55:58and feel for the bad mom

00:56:00because each one of us

00:56:02is a part of her.

00:56:03And she, a part of us.

00:56:05Moms can be many things,

00:56:07but on screen,

00:56:08if they're hot,

00:56:09they also often happen

00:56:10to be kind of evil.

00:56:12Or, if not outright evil,

00:56:13still pretty bad.

00:56:15You're mean!

00:56:16You betcha.

00:56:17Get in there.

00:56:18There are long-standing ideas

00:56:19about the way a mother

00:56:20is supposed to be

00:56:21and behave,

00:56:22and continuing to be

00:56:23physically attractive

00:56:24and think of yourself

00:56:25as an individual

00:56:26are not on the list.

00:56:28This has led to decades of media

00:56:30where you can immediately tell

00:56:31who the bad mom is

00:56:32just by her looks.

00:56:34Thankfully,

00:56:34this is finally starting to change

00:56:36as more modern shows and films

00:56:38have started tackling

00:56:38this trope head-on.

00:56:40But it still hasn't

00:56:41totally gone away.

00:56:42So let's take a deeper look

00:56:44at why media was so afraid

00:56:45of hot moms,

00:56:46the truth behind

00:56:47the mother-versus-daughter battles

00:56:49they usually get trapped in,

00:56:50and the iconic characters

00:56:52that started flipping the script

00:56:54on this trope.

00:56:55As much as expectations of moms

00:56:57have changed over the decades,

00:56:58their nearly unreachable nature

00:57:00has remained constant.

00:57:01In the first half of the 20th century,

00:57:03the belief was that the mother

00:57:04belonged in the home

00:57:06and should essentially

00:57:07solely exist to care for the house,

00:57:09her husband,

00:57:09and her children.

00:57:10While she was expected

00:57:11to always look put together

00:57:13and well-groomed,

00:57:14it was very strongly implied

00:57:16that her years of being hot

00:57:17were over

00:57:18and should be left behind.

00:57:20Obviously,

00:57:20there was more to these women

00:57:21than just their looks,

00:57:22but many had been raised

00:57:23to believe that their physical appearance

00:57:25was their greatest asset.

00:57:27To have to so quickly

00:57:28let this go

00:57:29in favor of looking more safely

00:57:30matronly

00:57:31after having children

00:57:32was a physical embodiment

00:57:33of the way they were made

00:57:34to give up their entire selves

00:57:36and disappear into motherhood.

00:57:38And women who didn't go this route,

00:57:40who continue to take an interest

00:57:41in their looks,

00:57:42could come to be seen

00:57:43as a threat to other women

00:57:44or as a mother

00:57:45who didn't really care

00:57:47for her family

00:57:47the way she should.

00:57:48If the clothes from that dry cleaning bag

00:57:50are on the floor of my closet,

00:57:51you're going to be

00:57:52a very sorry young lady.

00:57:53By the middle of the century,

00:57:54we began to see women

00:57:55bucking against this idea

00:57:57that they should completely give up

00:57:58being sexual beings

00:57:59or individuals at all

00:58:01after giving birth.

00:58:02But while these stories

00:58:03might have been slightly

00:58:04more sympathetic

00:58:05towards their plight,

00:58:06they were still painted

00:58:07as bad mothers

00:58:08and generally bad people.

00:58:10What are you so scared of?

00:58:12I'm not scared,

00:58:12Mrs. Robinson.

00:58:13Then why do you keep running away?

00:58:15Hot moms on screen

00:58:16are often framed

00:58:17as dying to hold on

00:58:18to their youth at any cost,

00:58:20which can lead to some issues

00:58:21with their own children,

00:58:23which we'll get to

00:58:23in just a minute.

00:58:24The implication is usually

00:58:25that they're in some kind

00:58:26of arrested development,

00:58:28unable or unwilling

00:58:29to grow up

00:58:30and become real adults.

00:58:32Mothers on screen

00:58:32are often viewed

00:58:33as secondary characters

00:58:35in everyone else's lives,

00:58:37the idea being

00:58:37that they should only exist

00:58:38to provide cookies

00:58:39and a kind but vague

00:58:41word of advice

00:58:41to the real characters

00:58:43before the credits roll.

00:58:44Hot moms, on the other hand,

00:58:45make themselves

00:58:46the main characters

00:58:47of their own stories,

00:58:48the hotness just serving

00:58:50as a visual indication

00:58:51that she refuses to conform

00:58:52to the old-school mom stereotypes.

00:58:55And this doesn't even have

00:58:55to mean tight dresses

00:58:56and lots of makeup.

00:58:58For a long time,

00:58:58even just keeping long hair

00:59:00after getting married

00:59:01and having children

00:59:02was seen as kind of self-indulgent.

00:59:05In the latter half

00:59:05of the 20th century

00:59:06and into the 21st,

00:59:08we began getting stories

00:59:09that were willing to dig more

00:59:10into the psychology

00:59:11of the bad hot mom.

00:59:13While they were usually

00:59:14still pretty terrible parents,

00:59:15we started to get more insight

00:59:16into why they were behaving

00:59:18the way they were.

00:59:19Sometimes they were fun moms

00:59:21with a dark side,

00:59:22like Kelly's mom Jackie

00:59:23on Beverly Hills 90210.

00:59:25While Jackie at first

00:59:25seemed like a fun,

00:59:26stylish, cool mom,

00:59:28it was soon revealed

00:59:29that she had a lot of problems

00:59:30lurking under the surface,

00:59:32and these issues in turn

00:59:33harmed Kelly in a big way.

00:59:35Jackie was contrasted

00:59:36against sweet homemaker

00:59:37and good mom Cindy,

00:59:39mother to Brenda and Brandon.

00:59:40Jackie tries,

00:59:41but is reckless and restless

00:59:42and seems to just be

00:59:43holding onto her looks

00:59:45due to her desperation

00:59:46to find love.

00:59:47The bad hot mom

00:59:48really came into her own

00:59:49in the early 2000s,

00:59:51and by this point

00:59:51she had pretty much

00:59:52stopped caring about

00:59:53what anyone else had to say.

00:59:55Societal shifts began

00:59:56to change the expectations

00:59:57of moms.

00:59:58Now she should take care

00:59:59of the home, the kids,

01:00:00her husband,

01:00:01and kick ass at a high-powered job.

01:00:03And she should look good doing it.

01:00:05Instead of it being a red flag,

01:00:07now hotness had started

01:00:08to become an expectation

01:00:10placed on all moms

01:00:11to some degree.

01:00:12And so the on-screen

01:00:13evil hot mom

01:00:14had to get ratched up to match.

01:00:16It's my job to teach you

01:00:17and you are not

01:00:18half the man

01:00:19I know you can be.

01:00:21Well, I've got news for you.

01:00:23This is as good

01:00:24as I'm gonna get.

01:00:24If I really thought that,

01:00:25I'd get a gun right now

01:00:26and kill us both.

01:00:28Whether she was

01:00:28a ladder-climbing socialite,

01:00:30an aloof rich lady

01:00:31who often seemed to forget

01:00:32she even had kids,

01:00:34or a spy trying

01:00:35to kill the president,

01:00:36this new wave of hot moms

01:00:37didn't have any problem

01:00:39focusing on the most important

01:00:40thing in their lives,

01:00:42themselves.

01:00:43They certainly still got flack for it,

01:00:45but they didn't really care.

01:00:46I let you do the scheming,

01:00:48clearly not your wheelhouse.

01:00:49From now on,

01:00:50if someone needs to be manipulated,

01:00:52we put me in charge.

01:00:53These moms often provided

01:00:54a satirical look

01:00:56at the fear of female agency

01:00:58that has underlied

01:00:58the trope from the beginning.

01:01:00And this new look at the trope

01:01:01happened in tandem

01:01:02with new explorations

01:01:03of what it meant

01:01:04to be a child-free woman,

01:01:06another group that was vilified

01:01:08for not being sufficiently maternal.

01:01:10We've got a whole video on that

01:01:11you can check out

01:01:12if you want to learn more.

01:01:13But as detached

01:01:14as they might often be from them,

01:01:15the hot moms do,

01:01:16by definition,

01:01:17have kids.

01:01:18And that has often led

01:01:19to a rather weird

01:01:20and honestly kind of concerning

01:01:21aspect of this trope.

01:01:23There's often an implication

01:01:25that hot moms

01:01:26are upsetting

01:01:26the natural order of things

01:01:28when they won't recede

01:01:29into the background

01:01:30and let the younger women

01:01:31take the spotlight.

01:01:32And as a result,

01:01:33the bad hot mom

01:01:34is often portrayed

01:01:35as being in competition

01:01:37with her daughter,

01:01:38the younger,

01:01:39fresher version of herself.

01:01:40You know,

01:01:41I used to like the punk in my day.

01:01:42Mom.

01:01:43Oh, you're right, Marissa.

01:01:43It still is my day.

01:01:45Their daughters are usually

01:01:46in the prime of their young adulthood,

01:01:47with all of the world's possibilities

01:01:49still available to them.

01:01:50They're supposed to be

01:01:52focusing on looking their best

01:01:53and living their best lives,

01:01:54and the mothers are supposed to be

01:01:56fading into the background.

01:01:58The hot mom, of course,

01:01:59isn't down for this.

01:02:00There are always teen

01:02:02versus parent tensions on screen,

01:02:03just like in real life,

01:02:04but this trope often boils things down

01:02:06to a battle of desirability.

01:02:09As far back as OG cougar

01:02:10Mrs. Robinson,

01:02:11the trope has seen these moms

01:02:13attempting to situate themselves

01:02:14into the lives of younger people

01:02:16in an effort to reclaim

01:02:17their own youth.

01:02:18And this is often done

01:02:19through sexual means.

01:02:21Mrs. Robinson,

01:02:22you're trying to seduce me.

01:02:23While Benjamin was an adult college grad,

01:02:25later versions of the trope

01:02:26often saw the hot mom

01:02:27becoming even more overtly sexual

01:02:29and going for younger and younger guys.

01:02:32Their daughters are often in high school,

01:02:34and so to supplant her,

01:02:35the hot mom goes after

01:02:36her high school boyfriends.

01:02:38Hey, what's Luke doing here?

01:02:41Did you tell him about your watch?

01:02:42No, I wouldn't.

01:02:46This is part of a larger,

01:02:48creepy trend of the hot mom

01:02:50going after pretty much

01:02:51any younger guy

01:02:52that crosses her path,

01:02:53even if he's still a teen.

01:02:55Hi, how was school?

01:02:57Got an A- on my biology exam.

01:02:58I did.

01:03:00Well, let's see what you've learned.

01:03:02It's almost always played for laughs

01:03:04and even seen as a win for the guy.

01:03:06You want to get it on?

01:03:07You better clear your schedule.

01:03:10But the age gaps

01:03:10and power dynamics

01:03:11are still messed up

01:03:12and definitely not okay.

01:03:14Not only are these relationships

01:03:15likely to have negative long-term effects

01:03:17for the boys in them,

01:03:19but also for the hot mom's own kids

01:03:21who find out about it.

01:03:22What's this door lock?

01:03:24Mom, who is?

01:03:27Mom?

01:03:30Shiprake?

01:03:30Oh, hey, Stifler.

01:03:31As the bad hot moms moved

01:03:36from side to main characters

01:03:37on their shows,

01:03:38they began to get more actual story

01:03:40and opportunities

01:03:41to be more than just hot.

01:03:43Even as far back

01:03:44as Married with Children's Peggy Bundy,

01:03:46shows and films began flipping

01:03:47the evil hot mom trope

01:03:49with mothers that were attractive

01:03:50and not perfect parents,

01:03:52but also decidedly not bad people.

01:03:54But I wanted you to be proud of me,

01:03:56like those other kids

01:03:57are proud of their moms.

01:03:59But you're not like other moms.

01:04:00I mean, I knew that

01:04:01the first day of kindergarten

01:04:02when I opened up my lunchbox

01:04:04and found a dollar bill

01:04:04and a roadmap to Burger King.

01:04:06They showed that still having

01:04:07an interest in your own looks

01:04:08to some degree after having kids

01:04:10didn't preclude you

01:04:11from being a loving mom.

01:04:13Some stories also work to unpack

01:04:15the actually bad hot mom

01:04:17and find the good

01:04:18and usually still hot mom

01:04:20hiding underneath.

01:04:21On The O.C.,

01:04:21Marissa's mother, Julie,

01:04:23is obsessed with looks and status

01:04:24and will do whatever it takes

01:04:26to hold on to both.

01:04:27But over time,

01:04:28we find out that it's not

01:04:29just a superficial drive.

01:04:31She grew up incredibly poor

01:04:33and clawed her way into wealth

01:04:34and high society,

01:04:35and she's not going to give it up.

01:04:37But this drive to gain security

01:04:39through wealth via her own good looks

01:04:41causes her to not always

01:04:42be the best parent.

01:04:44I know this place

01:04:45has everything we never had,

01:04:47and I know you're afraid

01:04:48you're going to lose it all,

01:04:49everything you've ever wanted.

01:04:50I'm done.

01:04:51But what you want

01:04:52and what your daughter wants

01:04:52are two different things.

01:04:53You don't know what she wants!

01:04:55I know what she doesn't want!

01:04:56Over time,

01:04:56Julie and Marissa are able

01:04:57to find a deeper connection

01:04:58because they do truly care

01:05:00about one another,

01:05:01and Marissa realizes

01:05:02that many of Julie's worst habits

01:05:04are the result of trying

01:05:05to look out for her.

01:05:06And Julie is also given

01:05:07the chance to grow as a person

01:05:09and cultivate her own strength

01:05:10outside of just her looks

01:05:12while still looking hot

01:05:13when she wants to.

01:05:14No more manipulative b****,

01:05:16no more scheming,

01:05:16no more double-crossing,

01:05:18which will be a disappointment to some.

01:05:19As society has become

01:05:21more accepting of the fact

01:05:22that women don't turn to dust

01:05:23and blow away

01:05:24the moment they hit 30,

01:05:25we've also gotten more stories

01:05:27directly confronting

01:05:28the way that attractive women

01:05:29are still sometimes seen

01:05:31as a threat,

01:05:31even when they haven't done anything

01:05:33except, well, look hot.

01:05:35You think I don't know

01:05:36what they're thinking?

01:05:37Ah, here comes the hot one

01:05:39with the big boobies

01:05:40that is going to steal my husband.

01:05:41Modern Family's Gloria

01:05:43has to battle the evil hot mom

01:05:45and the evil second wife

01:05:46allegations from the very beginning,

01:05:48but she proves that she's actually

01:05:49the most emotionally mature

01:05:51and open-minded person

01:05:52in the family

01:05:53and instead of breaking them apart

01:05:54is actually the one

01:05:55to pull them all back together.

01:05:57You're going to tell me

01:05:58what is wrong

01:05:59and I'm going to give you

01:06:00the right answer

01:06:01because I have all of them.

01:06:03Views on motherhood

01:06:03continue to evolve and expand

01:06:05and women, both on screen

01:06:06and in real life,

01:06:08are accepting the fact

01:06:09that there's no one single

01:06:10right way to look like

01:06:12or be a mother.

01:06:13It's totally fine

01:06:14and if anything,

01:06:15actually really important

01:06:16to continue to see yourself

01:06:18as a unique individual human being

01:06:20even after getting married

01:06:21and having kids

01:06:22and if focusing on your looks

01:06:24is a part of that,

01:06:25then so be it.

01:06:26Honey, what is your real hair color?

01:06:30I don't know.

01:06:32What color is yours?

01:06:34I don't know.

01:06:35The evil hot mom trope

01:06:37was born out of a fear

01:06:38of female agency

01:06:39and of women owning

01:06:40their own sexuality

01:06:41as they aged

01:06:42and so as times have changed,

01:06:44this trope has finally

01:06:45started to fade

01:06:46as moms of all kinds

01:06:47have taken their place

01:06:49in the spotlight.

01:06:50But I'm here now

01:06:51and hey, I'm like cheese.

01:06:52What?

01:06:53She goes better with time.

01:06:54Phoebe Buffay

01:06:54is the quirkiest friend,

01:06:56unafraid to walk or run

01:06:58to the beat of her own drum.

01:06:59And while some may have been

01:07:00surprised by her desire

01:07:02for a more traditional family

01:07:03and friends later seasons,

01:07:05if we really take a closer look

01:07:06at her character,

01:07:07it actually makes a lot of sense.

01:07:09I haven't exactly had

01:07:11a normal life

01:07:11and I never really felt

01:07:13like I was missing out

01:07:14on anything,

01:07:14but it just,

01:07:16it feels like now

01:07:17it's my turn

01:07:18to have some of the regular stuff.

01:07:19So here's our take

01:07:21on why Phoebe

01:07:21would make a great mom

01:07:23and how her journey

01:07:24of discovering herself

01:07:25over the show's 10 seasons

01:07:27led her down this path.

01:07:31One of the first things

01:07:33we learn about Phoebe

01:07:34is that she had

01:07:35an incredibly difficult

01:07:36and traumatic childhood,

01:07:37though this is usually

01:07:38played for laughs.

01:07:39My mom had killed herself

01:07:41and my dad had run off

01:07:42and I was living

01:07:43in a gremlin

01:07:44with a guy named Cindy

01:07:45who talked to his hand.

01:07:46She never had a safe,

01:07:47secure family structure

01:07:49and had to take on

01:07:50the world alone

01:07:51from a very early age.

01:07:53In this process,

01:07:54she became both wise

01:07:55about the world

01:07:55and good at reading people,

01:07:57two skills that actually

01:07:58make her very smart,

01:07:59but in a way

01:08:00that's often overlooked

01:08:01by her friends

01:08:02because of her kooky vibe.

01:08:03Phoebe's secret wiseness

01:08:13allows her to help her friends

01:08:14in ways that no one else could

01:08:16because she can step back

01:08:17and see the bigger picture

01:08:19due to having

01:08:19more life experience,

01:08:21just like a great mom does.

01:08:23Yeah, I'm very wise, I know.

01:08:24And in this way,

01:08:25Phoebe is kind of

01:08:26the mom friend of the group,

01:08:27the one everyone goes to

01:08:28for advice, help, or laugh,

01:08:30but whose emotional work

01:08:31is often overlooked.

01:08:33She's always there

01:08:34for the people that need her.

01:08:36She brings out the best

01:08:37in those around her.

01:08:38She isn't afraid to stand up

01:08:39for herself or her loved ones.

01:08:41And her weird ways

01:08:42actually make her a lot of fun.

01:08:44Phoebe isn't afraid of failure

01:08:46or of being made fun of

01:08:47and won't let a little pushback

01:08:49stand in the way

01:08:50of getting what she wants.

01:08:51You know what the best part of it is?

01:08:53I get to do my plan laugh.

01:08:56And she in turn

01:08:57helps draw out the confidence

01:08:59in her friends

01:09:00in the same way

01:09:00a mom would lead

01:09:01her own children

01:09:02along the path

01:09:03to self-assurance.

01:09:04Phoebe knows how important

01:09:06it is to believe in yourself

01:09:07and be able to go after

01:09:09what you want,

01:09:10even if it might be

01:09:10a little scary at first.

01:09:12She's always ready

01:09:13to lend an ear to her friends

01:09:14and to give advice,

01:09:16even if it's not always

01:09:17the advice they might

01:09:18want to hear.

01:09:20It's complicated, okay?

01:09:23Yeah, that's true.

01:09:24You love her,

01:09:25you always have,

01:09:26you have a child together.

01:09:27There's no right answer.

01:09:28She's also very accepting

01:09:30and willing to see her friends

01:09:31as they are,

01:09:33instead of who she thinks

01:09:34they should be.

01:09:35This allows them

01:09:36to be themselves around her

01:09:37and even opens them up

01:09:38to seeing new sides

01:09:40of themselves.

01:09:41And Phoebe doesn't just care

01:09:42about her tight-knit

01:09:43little roots.

01:09:43She makes it a point

01:09:44to help improve the days,

01:09:46or even lives,

01:09:47of people all around her.

01:09:49I'm going to be out there

01:09:49spreading joy to the people.

01:09:51I mean, last year

01:09:52I spread a little joy,

01:09:53but not really enough.

01:09:54So this year,

01:09:55I'm going to do the whole city.

01:09:56She shows the group

01:09:57how important it is

01:09:58to look outside of yourself

01:09:59at the bigger picture.

01:10:01At first glance,

01:10:02it might seem like Monica

01:10:03or Chandler would be

01:10:04the parent friend.

01:10:05They generally have stable jobs,

01:10:07are mostly responsible,

01:10:08and usually try to keep

01:10:10things in order.

01:10:11I am always the hostess.

01:10:13But it's Phoebe

01:10:14that everyone turns to

01:10:15for guidance,

01:10:16or for that extra push

01:10:17they need to follow

01:10:18their dreams

01:10:19or accept their real feelings.

01:10:22Are you sure?

01:10:23Well, yeah,

01:10:23I lied before.

01:10:24Now you know

01:10:30how you really feel about it.

01:10:31And while she might not

01:10:32initially seem

01:10:33all that responsible,

01:10:34she clearly is.

01:10:36In addition to surviving

01:10:37on the streets

01:10:38as a teenager,

01:10:39as an adult,

01:10:40she manages to afford rent

01:10:41in New York City

01:10:42through odd jobs

01:10:43while setting her own schedule

01:10:45so that she's able

01:10:45to hang out with her friends

01:10:47and enjoy her hobbies.

01:10:48She might not have

01:10:49some conventional

01:10:50high-powered job,

01:10:51but she's carved out

01:10:52a life that works for her

01:10:54through her tenacity.

01:10:55And we see in

01:10:56the Alternate Universe episodes

01:10:57how unhappy she would have been

01:10:59if she had gone after

01:11:00those more traditional

01:11:01markers of success.

01:11:03Phoebe's life path

01:11:04has allowed her to develop

01:11:05her resourcefulness,

01:11:07smarts,

01:11:07and sense of self

01:11:08in a way no one else

01:11:09in the group has.

01:11:11And it's all these

01:11:11different facets of herself

01:11:13coming together

01:11:14that allows her

01:11:15to be such a great friend,

01:11:16and that would also

01:11:17allow her to be

01:11:18a great mom.

01:11:23By season nine of Friends,

01:11:25Phoebe has decided

01:11:25that she wants to settle down

01:11:27and start building a family,

01:11:29leading her to break up

01:11:30with Mike when he says

01:11:31that he doesn't see

01:11:32marriage in their future.

01:11:33It was okay to move in

01:11:35when I didn't know

01:11:36what was going to happen,

01:11:37but I can't move in

01:11:39knowing nothing is ever

01:11:40going to happen.

01:11:41Phoebe's attachment

01:11:42to a tradition like marriage

01:11:43might have seemed odd

01:11:44at first,

01:11:45especially given how quirky

01:11:46and unbound by tradition

01:11:48she had always seemed to be.

01:11:50But if we really look

01:11:51at Phoebe's story,

01:11:52one of her biggest goals

01:11:53was always building

01:11:55her found family

01:11:56and holding them close.

01:11:57And as someone

01:11:58who has never had

01:11:59a lot of consistency

01:12:00in her life,

01:12:01it's not that surprising

01:12:02that she might see

01:12:03something like marriage

01:12:04as an important step

01:12:05towards a feeling

01:12:06of normality and stability.

01:12:09I just needed to know

01:12:09that we were headed somewhere.

01:12:11We know that we had a future.

01:12:13She also starts to realize

01:12:14that motherhood

01:12:15is an important part

01:12:16of her dream as well.

01:12:17But do I want that house

01:12:18in Connecticut,

01:12:19you know,

01:12:19near the good schools

01:12:20where Mike and I

01:12:21could send little Sophie

01:12:22and Mike Jr.?

01:12:23Oh my god, I do.

01:12:27This felt a bit

01:12:28out of left field

01:12:28at the time

01:12:29since Phoebe never fell

01:12:30into the stereotype

01:12:31we often see on screen

01:12:33of women who want

01:12:34to be mothers,

01:12:34cooing at babies

01:12:35on the street

01:12:36and staring longingly

01:12:37into toy store windows.

01:12:39But Phoebe was always

01:12:40great with kids

01:12:41and clearly felt

01:12:42a special connection

01:12:43to her nieces and nephews.

01:12:44I can babysit

01:12:46any time you want.

01:12:47You name the day

01:12:47and I'll be there.

01:12:49You'd do that for us?

01:12:50Are you kidding?

01:12:51That's what sisters are for.

01:12:52Though we never see

01:12:53Phoebe have her own kids

01:12:55during the show's run,

01:12:56we do get a peek

01:12:57into what she'd be like

01:12:58as a mother

01:12:58when she's the surrogate

01:12:59for her half-brother

01:13:00Frank Jr.

01:13:01and his wife Alice.

01:13:02The pair were unable

01:13:03to conceive

01:13:04and ask Phoebe

01:13:05if she could carry

01:13:06their embryos.

01:13:07When Phoebe goes

01:13:07to her birth mother

01:13:08for advice,

01:13:09she's given a puppy

01:13:10to take care of

01:13:11and then give up,

01:13:12with her birth mother

01:13:13noting that giving up

01:13:14a baby will be

01:13:15many times more difficult

01:13:16and it does prove

01:13:18to be incredibly difficult

01:13:19to let the puppy go.

01:13:20But when she sees

01:13:21how happy it makes

01:13:22Frank Jr. and Alice,

01:13:23who she gives the puppy to

01:13:25instead of giving it

01:13:25back to her mother,

01:13:26she decides that she does

01:13:28want to help them

01:13:28have a baby.

01:13:29I know it's gonna be

01:13:30like a million times

01:13:31harder to give up a baby,

01:13:32but oh my god,

01:13:34it's gonna feel

01:13:34like a million times

01:13:35better, right?

01:13:36Phoebe goes through

01:13:37the many stages

01:13:38of planned pregnancy.

01:13:39Like,

01:13:39the fear that you

01:13:40won't be able

01:13:41to get pregnant,

01:13:42glee at finally

01:13:42getting a positive result,

01:13:44fatigue and aches,

01:13:45weird food cravings,

01:13:47and the pain,

01:13:48intensity,

01:13:48and joy of giving birth.

01:13:50Phoebe does find

01:13:51that she feels

01:13:51deeply attached

01:13:52to the triplets

01:13:53and doesn't want

01:13:54to let them go.

01:13:55Can I tell you

01:13:56a little secret?

01:13:57Yeah.

01:13:58I want to keep one.

01:14:00When she does

01:14:00finally accept

01:14:01that she won't be able

01:14:02to keep any of the babies,

01:14:03she's clearly sad

01:14:05and disappointed

01:14:05on a deep level.

01:14:07But, I mean,

01:14:08did you talk to them

01:14:09about you?

01:14:10Yeah.

01:14:11Um.

01:14:14No.

01:14:14Honey.

01:14:16Oh.

01:14:16Okay.

01:14:17Okay.

01:14:17It's obvious

01:14:18that she developed

01:14:19a profound love

01:14:20for the babies

01:14:21as she's carried

01:14:21them for nine months,

01:14:23and this likely sparked

01:14:24a longing in the back

01:14:25of her mind

01:14:26for children

01:14:26that she would

01:14:27get to keep

01:14:28and build

01:14:28a loving home for.

01:14:30It's also important

01:14:30to remember

01:14:31that the Phoebe

01:14:32we see in the final

01:14:33seasons of the show

01:14:34is a decade older

01:14:35than the one

01:14:35we meet in season one.

01:14:37It's not at all

01:14:38surprising

01:14:38that someone

01:14:39might have

01:14:39different wants

01:14:40and goals

01:14:40in their late 30s

01:14:41than they did

01:14:42in their late 20s.

01:14:43When we first

01:14:44meet Phoebe,

01:14:44she's only 29,

01:14:46an age where

01:14:46many people

01:14:47are still trying

01:14:48to work out

01:14:48what they really

01:14:49want out of life.

01:14:50She never really

01:14:51had a traditional

01:14:51family structure

01:14:52as she grew up

01:14:53in a chaotic

01:14:54household

01:14:55and then was

01:14:55out on her own

01:14:56from a young age.

01:14:57So it makes sense

01:14:58that she didn't

01:14:59even initially

01:15:00think of that

01:15:01kind of family

01:15:01as something

01:15:02that she could have,

01:15:03much less would want.

01:15:05But by the time

01:15:06she's in her late 30s

01:15:07near the end of the show,

01:15:08she's realized

01:15:09that any path

01:15:10is possible for her.

01:15:11And just like

01:15:12she always pushed

01:15:13her friends

01:15:13to accept

01:15:14their true feelings,

01:15:15she also stands

01:15:16steadfast in what

01:15:17she realizes

01:15:18she really wants.

01:15:20As the show

01:15:29neared its end,

01:15:30Phoebe and Mike

01:15:30finally got on

01:15:31the same page

01:15:32about their future.

01:15:40And while some

01:15:41saw this as

01:15:41Phoebe settling,

01:15:42the truth is

01:15:43that she was

01:15:44really making

01:15:44an active choice

01:15:45to go after

01:15:46what she wanted.

01:15:47Mike might not

01:15:48have been as wacky

01:15:49and fun as Phoebe,

01:15:50but he did present

01:15:51an opportunity

01:15:52for her to capture

01:15:53things she had always

01:15:54felt she missed out on.

01:15:55Permanence

01:15:56and love.

01:15:57While they seem

01:15:58different on the surface,

01:15:59they have a lot of

01:16:00very important things

01:16:01in common,

01:16:02like their creativity

01:16:02and shared sense of humor.

01:16:04And most importantly,

01:16:05he loves her

01:16:06for who she is,

01:16:07quirks and all.

01:16:08I love Phoebe.

01:16:10She's the single

01:16:11most important thing

01:16:12in my life.

01:16:13I'd die before

01:16:13I let anything happen to her.

01:16:15And it's this

01:16:15mutual love and respect

01:16:17that makes Phoebe's

01:16:18turn towards wanting

01:16:19a more stereotypical lifestyle

01:16:21feel optimistic

01:16:22instead of off-putting

01:16:24or sad.

01:16:25She's not settling

01:16:25for less

01:16:26or giving up

01:16:27on her true self.

01:16:28She's just expanding

01:16:29the horizons

01:16:30of her weird,

01:16:31quirky world

01:16:32to include her husband

01:16:33and eventual kids.

01:16:35So wonderfully weird.

01:16:39Phoebe had to learn

01:16:40the ways of the world

01:16:41and how to take care

01:16:42of herself

01:16:43from a young age.

01:16:44But instead of

01:16:45letting this harden her

01:16:46and make her spiteful,

01:16:47she's instead

01:16:48always enjoyed

01:16:49using her knowledge

01:16:50and perception

01:16:51to aid the people

01:16:52in her life.

01:16:53She worked hard

01:16:54to surround herself

01:16:55with good friends

01:16:55and build a tight-knit

01:16:57found family.

01:16:58And as she got older

01:16:58and realized she did

01:17:00actually want

01:17:00a traditional family too,

01:17:02she didn't let the fear

01:17:03of becoming too conventional

01:17:04hold her back.

01:17:06She found a way

01:17:06to stay true to herself

01:17:08even as her desires

01:17:09and opportunities

01:17:10shifted over time.

01:17:11And she provides

01:17:12an important example

01:17:13to all of us,

01:17:14even those of us

01:17:15who don't want

01:17:15to be parents,

01:17:16that it's always okay

01:17:17to change things up

01:17:19to create a happy,

01:17:20safe life for yourself,

01:17:21even if that means

01:17:22doing something

01:17:23you never would have

01:17:24dreamed of

01:17:24in your younger years.

01:17:26Please, these guys,

01:17:27we haven't even moved in yet

01:17:28and they have us

01:17:28picking out China patterns.

01:17:32China patterns?

01:17:34Being a good parent

01:17:35is about more than

01:17:35just being responsible

01:17:37in the traditional sense.

01:17:38It requires a whole range

01:17:40of skills

01:17:40and emotional maturity.

01:17:42And Phoebe's

01:17:43winding weird life

01:17:44got her ready

01:17:45to take on anything,

01:17:46including motherhood.

01:17:48In the same way

01:17:49that she's a great friend,

01:17:50sweet girlfriend,

01:17:51and a probably

01:17:52too nice sister,

01:17:53she'll use everything

01:17:55that makes her so amazing

01:17:56to create a wonderful,

01:17:58happy environment

01:17:59for her kids

01:18:00and help them

01:18:01grow into adults

01:18:02that are just as confident

01:18:03and zany as she is.

01:18:05People were looking at us

01:18:06like we were crazy.

01:18:08Why do you care?

01:18:09Because they're people.

01:18:11But people that you don't know

01:18:13and will never see again.

01:18:14That's the take.

01:18:15Click here to watch the video

01:18:16we think you'll love.

01:18:18Or here to check out

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01:18:19of awesome content.

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