Are You a Type B Mom?
Plus the new parenting bible that I am gifting to all my mom friends.
Get those orders in for Everyone is Lying to You. I’m giving away a free one year subscription for this newsletter when you submit your receipt here.
Here’s a list of purchasing options, but it’s also available at a lot of indie bookstores and you can get signed copies mailed to you here and here.
Fun thing coming up! I am doing a Substack Live tomorrow with Tyler Moore of Tidy Dad at 3 pm. You can join us here.
Tyler is the best. He will make you laugh, teach you how to properly clean a toilet and organize your kids’ closets. You can read more about him here:
Now onto the latest trend on social media….Type B moms.
I want to start out by reiterating that I am not raising gentle kids. They didn’t come out of my womb with sweet innocent smiles on their faces. In fact I distinctly remember my middle child making direct eye contact with me the second her head was placed on my boob by the nurse. She stared me right in the eye with a look that asked “you ready for this ride, bitch?”
All of them came out a little feral, a little hell-raisy, a lot opinionated and a lot of fun. But gentle is not a word I would ever use to describe them.
This makes gentle parenting pretty hard for me which also makes following the advice of most parenting influencers impossible. But there is a new trend among parents on the social medias—celebrating Type B moms.
Type B mom seems to suit me much better than the Type A gentle parent or Tiger mom. It’s the “meh, they’ll survive” counterpart to the high-achieving, color-coded Type A mom.
Type B moms are the ones embracing the chaos. They let their kids wear Halloween costumes in May, serve frozen pizza for dinner again, and don’t spiral into shame if they forget pajama day at school. (Honestly, who the fuck invented pajama day…no one is winning here)
Here are some ways I parented this week:
Fed my kids chicken nuggets and pizza every night for the past five nights.
Accidentally ran over a toad with the car and asked the kids if they wanted to see it because it seemed like something interesting to look at and a learning experience.
Potty trained the baby by showing her Daniel Tiger videos.
Told my daughter I couldn’t do a French braid bc it’s illegal to do it unless you’re French. (When she said that Louise and Camilla at school have them I insisted they were French).
Let the kids watch whatever Jurassic Park they wanted so I could re-stain the deck and listen to an audio book.
I actually don’t think of myself as a type anything parent. If I had to put a label on imy parenting I would say it is a blend of eighties parenting without the Marlboro Lights and Bartles and James with more seatbelts and carseats.
Experts have argued that this more relaxed approach can actually benefit kids, making them more resilient and emotionally attuned. So basically, your inability to make a rainbow Bento Box isn’t a failure—it’s science-backed parenting genius.
Psychotherapist Colette Brown told Today.com that Type B moms are speaking out in response to the Tradwife trend of women extolling 1950s housewife values, and an awareness that social media may not be healthy for children and adults’ self-esteem. Specifically mothers, says Brown, are reacting to seeing their Type A counterparts living the “good life” on social media.
“There seems to be a backlash against the idea that there is one right way to be a mother,” says Brown. “Moms are realizing, ‘I need to find what works for me and be OK with it.’”
Look up Type B mom on socials. You’ll get a good laugh.
Social media has typically warped our sense of what “good” parenting looks like. This is one of the reasons I loved my recent chat with science-journalist and parenting expert Melinda Wenner Moyer on Under the Influence.
She’s a science journalist, a mother, and the author of How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes and her newest book, Hello, Cruel World: How to Parent with Hope in an Era of Anxiety and Doom. In this conversation, we talk about the science behind screen time panic, what actually works when it comes to discipline, how to raise media-literate kids, and why letting them be bored might be the best gift you can give them. I also just gifted her new book to all my mom friends.
There is no such thing as a “good” mother. I have said this again and again. I even hate type-casting moms. In the majority of cases I think you should do what works for you and if you’re worried about being a “good enough mother” spoiler then you probably already are.
Q&A with Melinda Wenner Moyer
Jo: I hear your voice in my head a lot. Mostly when I’m trying to raise a kid who’s not an asshole. I think, "What would Melinda tell me to do?"
Melinda: I hope it's a nice voice. I hope it's not naggy.
Jo: You’re not. Your advice is rational. That’s what I want—parenting advice for normal people. Because who actually gentle parents?
Melinda: To be a gentle parent, you need gentle kids. And most of us don’t have alien children. We have real ones.
Jo: What’s the number one question you get from parents?
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