There's no such thing as a good mother (or a bad one)

Yes. Even her.

Let’s consider retiring the distinction between good mothers and bad mothers.

A good-bad conceit is always hard to let go, and with mothers it’s kept in place by courts awarding custody and once well-intentioned psychotherapeutic set pieces. But the good-bad continuum is gibberish when used of mothers and to drop it is to gain a real measure of psychological freedom for mothers and their children alike.

There are many pursuits that are narrow enough to admit binaries of virtue. Writers, knitters, drivers — they can all be either good or bad. But mothering: there are as many different mothers as there are individuals in the world. To speak of a “good mother” or a “bad mother” is to resurrect the same life-ruining distinction that once separated good virginal women from bad whorish ones, and good pot-roast wives from bad slattern ones.