The Six Mothers Every Mother Hates

Moms rule. Everyone knows this. You could scour the earth and never find a group of women more dedicated, tireless, giving and loving than the mothers of the world.

And yet…

Who among us can honestly say they don’t get frustrated with certain types of mothers? Let’s call them “motherhood extremists.” They are peppered throughout our daily lives – in classrooms, on committees, at the grocery store, at sports events – those mothers who push our buttons and work our nerves.

We don’t like to admit it, but they make us feel a little, um … inferior in certain respects while at the same time leaving us with a tinge of guilt for becoming annoyed with their behavior. They are, after all, other moms. Aren’t we all on the same team? Shouldn’t we be supportive of one another? Sure … up to a point – the point, for instance, at which one of them brings camera-ready pilgrim cookies with articulated limbs to the classroom Thanksgiving feast while loudly commenting on how surprisingly easy it was to move around the kitchen on crutches.

Yep, that’s where that point stops.

Of course we grudgingly admire some aspect of these ladies’ parenting personalities – we admit that up front. But could we perhaps dial it down a smidge? For instance …

1. The Germinator: Woe to the bacterium that comes within striking distance of the Germinator’s 50-gallon drum of hand sanitizer. Like a one-woman Centers for Disease Control, this mom issues health bulletins, charts outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in the public parks and has been known to send her child to birthday parties wearing a festive germ mask. When you are in the presence of the Germinator, you have an uncontrollable urge to wipe your child’s nose, whether it’s funky or not.

2. Mayhem Mom: The Tasmanian Devil of parenting, Mayhem Mom is surrounded by chaos at all times, yet never seems to be flustered by it. The last time you talked with her, she was holding two screaming children and calmly segued from telling you that her roofer had just left town after ripping the shingles off her kitchen into musing about what she should pack for tomorrow’s road trip to Mount Rushmore, all while her Labradoodle retched into her stroller basket. All it takes to tip you into critical fail, on the other hand, is the discovery that you accidentally grabbed the wrong soy latte off the counter at Starbucks.

3. The Nutritionista: You didn’t know you were feeding your family appalling crap until the Nutritionista came into your world. (Okay, maybe you didn’t know just how appalling it was.) You’ve been skittish around this mom since you got shamed for bringing non-organic rice crispy treats to school for snack and things really went downhill when she saw that Red Bull roll out of your purse at soccer practice. Now you’ve made a special trip to Whole Foods to try and figure out what to feed her child when he comes over for a playdate tomorrow because you’ve got a feeling the usual beef jerky and juice box aren’t going to cut it.

4. Cool Mom: Cool Mom seems to exist solely to make all the other moms (especially you) look like uptight buzzkills. Children of all ages are drawn to her world without boundaries like tweens to moody vampires. Wear the tube top, Daisy Dukes and over-the-knee boots to school on Friday? “Chloe’s mom lets her!” Eat banana splits in the car on the way to Grandma’s? “Chloe’s mom lets her!” A co-ed “just friends” sleepover for your 14th birthday? “Chloe’s mom let her!” The unspoken question: Why can’t you be cool like Cool Mom?

5. The Mouthpiece: This mom purports to be the spokesperson for any and every organization your child is affiliated with, including schools, sports teams and civic organizations. She considers it her sacred duty to have the inside scoop on scandals, staff changes and ongoing grievances and prides herself on her network of highly placed sources. Every conversation with the Mouthpiece leaves you with the uneasy feeling that she knows your child’s grades before the report card ever comes home … as well as your credit score.

6. Immaculate Mom: Blessed be Immaculate Mom for nary a harsh nor unkind word has ever crossed her tastefully glossed lips. When you and your disgruntled mom friends are in a cluster, grousing about the epic crabbiness of the school’s Spanish teacher, Immaculate Mom will pop her head in and say something like, “Perhaps Señor Hofbrau was having a challenging day.” WTF? Nothing draws Immaculate Mom’s ire. You’ve seen her respond with a smile and kind word to rudeness that would have Mother Teresa throat-punching the parent in question. How does she do this? It’s…unnerving. You know, however, that one day she’s going to blow like Mount St. Helens and when she does, you plan to be there, capturing every last F-bomb in sweet hi-def.

Related post: The 10 Mom Friends Every Mom Needs