Don't listen with your kids. There will be swears.
July 18, 2014 10:04 AM   Subscribe

One Bad Mother is a comedy podcast about motherhood and how unnatural it sometimes is. Hosted by Biz Ellis and Theresa Thorn (MeFi's own Tren), each week OBM covers some aspect of parenthood, like "the ramifications of teaching our kids fart jokes and songs about poop," "babies: still not relaxing," or, more seriously, things like partner resentment, and postpartum depression. Each week, in the "Call A Mom"* segment, Biz and Theresa talk to a guest who's got relevant experience or expertise on the topic at hand. But the best part of the show is the listener call-ins: Genius/Fail Time is "the part of the show where we share our genius moment of the week, as well as our failures, and feel better about ourselves by hearing yours"; and the "mom rant" allows exhausted parents to vent their spleen. The call-ins are so great because they're all about supporting other people in their day to day lives—it's through the lens of parenting, but the overriding philosophy ("this shit is hard and no one cares") is applicable to everyone's daily grind.

In addition to the podcast itself, there's a really supportive community that has built up around OBM in the Maximum Fun Forum and on the OBM Facebook page. There, you can find great things like a thread where "we're admitting things we feel judged and/or guilty about AND supporting one another!," a photo of an unexpected teething toy, and a challenge for the hosts and listeners to post non-perfect-looking photos of their families to social media to counteract the bad feelings we can get by comparing our insides to others' outsides.

*The guest for "Call A Mom" is not always a mom (sometimes a dad or—gasp!—a childless person with relevant experience!) but always intro'd by the awesome segment theme music: "Mom Song" by Adira Amram. Past guests have included
posted by ocherdraco (9 comments total) 46 users marked this as a favorite
 
OBM is one of those podcasts I originally subscribed to because of a specific episode and figured it would be good to keep around as filler when none of my other podcasts appealed, and has turned out to be one I rarely skip.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:38 AM on July 18, 2014


Well done on the post! I started listening to this podcast to get ready for fatherhood, and I've gotten a lot of--well, I wouldn't say good advice, but most accurately commiseration.
posted by Cash4Lead at 10:39 AM on July 18, 2014


My wife was featured in one of the Genius/Fail segments!
posted by saladin at 10:48 AM on July 18, 2014


My husband made the Father's Day show with his call about a lousy weekend. Starts around 61:18.
posted by shirobara at 10:52 AM on July 18, 2014 [3 favorites]


I listen to basically ALL of Max Fun's podcasts more or less religiously, but as a 20-something who refers to kids as "small people" I've kind of avoided this one.
posted by KernalM at 4:42 PM on July 18, 2014


It's worth giving it a shot. I don't have kids either, and it's my favorite MaxFun podcast. (Bullseye is a close second.)
posted by ocherdraco at 4:59 PM on July 18, 2014


This is the greatest podcast. It pulls no punches about how hard parenting is, while simultaneously making you feel like you're doing a GOOD JOB. I'm so glad it comes out weekly.
posted by Night_owl at 8:57 PM on July 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


This is my favourite podcast right now. I need to ring in with my latest (major) parenting fail, wherein I made my preschooler walk home from the park with shoes full of rocks. Accidentally. But still.
posted by jasperella at 8:43 AM on July 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


That's a good fail, but still not as good as the ant-covered cupcake in the park fail.
posted by Night_owl at 9:07 AM on July 19, 2014


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