When her two young sons first started walking, Lisa Moricoli-Latham, a mother in Pacific Palisades, Calif., would gently push them over. For the sake of their development, she thought it would be better for them to crawl first. A physical therapist had told her so. She kind of enjoyed it, she says. “It gave me this sort of nasty thrill…”
Ms. Moricoli-Latham is featured in a video promoting “True Mom Confessions,” a compilation of admissions of imperfect parenting that arrived in bookstores last week. Landing next month are Ayelet Waldman’s “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace” and Michael Lewis’s “Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood,” two memoirs that focus on the parental failings of the authors. In the fall, parenting Web site Babble.com will publish a compilation of essays from its most popular feature: a column called “Bad Parent.”
Critiquing other people’s parenting has become a sport for many mothers and fathers, aided by the Internet and the sheer volume of available expert advice. Now some parents, hoping to quiet the chorus of opinions, judgments and criticism, are defiantly confessing to their own “bad parenting” moments. They say that sharing their foibles helps relieve the pressure to be a perfect parent — and pokes fun at a culture where arguments over sleep-training methods and organic baby foods rage on. Critics say it’s the latest form of oversharing online — the equivalent of posting your every move on Twitter or Facebook — and only reinforces parents’ worst habits.