Mommy Dearest

It is axiomatic that the way a mother cares for her children has a lot to do with how they turn out. Take Tony Soprano. Or consider a meme: an image of a pregnant woman smoking and drinking is accompanied by the text “no it doesn’t affect my baby”; a picture of the child follows, and it’s a guy driving a tricked out pickup truck or an internet troll looking at photos of Donald Trump. Psychological problems seem universally understood as having to do with a “bad mother.” What criteria makes a mother bad, however, isn’t always as clear.