Thousands of TikTok folks think I’m a bad mom, but there’s more to the story
I went viral on TikTok, once again, for being a “bad mom.”
Now I am no stranger to going viral for my personal opinions or giving people glimpses into my lifestyle, but this time, the reaction was particularly loud.
A 6-second video of my daughter playing with bubbles in slow motion captioned “She doesn’t even know I’m about to send her to her grandparents’ house for six weeks this summer and take four vacations without her” (April 26) has racked up 1 million views, more than 109,000 likes and over 1,600 comments — at least 100 comments calling me selfish, unfit and a terrible mother.
My follow-up videos definitely didn’t help. After peeping the reoccurring theme amongst the most cynical responses, I posted another video saying that women who make being a mom their whole personality probably didn’t love their lives before the baby.
Then, I made a list of all the things that apparently make me a bad mom:
- I didn’t breastfeed because I didn’t want to.
- I’m always the last person to wake up in my house.
- I didn’t know my daughter’s sleep schedule as a baby because her dad handled all the night feedings.
- And the most controversial yet, I leave her with my parents for weeks or even months at a time while I work and travel.
The comments section turned into a virtual courtroom, and the jury full of Judge Judys’ verdict was unanimous: “Guilty.”
No matter how hard we try, moms can’t win
But here’s what I’ve learned from years of existing as an ambitious mom: You literally cannot win.
If you don’t work and you let the dad work, you’re lazy and stupid for not making your own money.
If you do work and the dad stays home to watch the baby, you’re unwomanly for not being present enough.
If you don’t have a village, people will tell you that you should have never had children without one.
But if you have a village — like I do — and you actually use it, you’re accused of offloading your parenting responsibilities onto everyone else.
There is literally no configuration of motherhood that would make everybody happy. So, why try? The standards are contradictory, the expectations are impossible, and the judgment is relentless, girl.
My only real question left is, why do we expect moms to disappear into motherhood in the first place?
Emma Grede sets an example and takes criticism
Emma Grede is someone I really look up to and has been the latest trending topic for her take on ambitious motherhood. If you don’t know (but I mean, if you’re reading this, you probably do), she’s an entrepreneur, co-founder of Skims and Good American and a “Shark Tank” investor who just wrapped her U.S. book tour for “Start With Yourself,” and the discourse around her has been loud (and wrong).
The viral clips focus on one thing: how much time she does or doesn’t spend with her four children. She’s been open about the fact that sometimes she only spends like three to four hours at a time with her kids because she’s building multibillion-dollar businesses.
She says she doesn’t feel like she needs to be there for the small things but is always there for the big things. School events, games, holidays, birthdays, things like that. The moments that matter to her.
And the people hated that.
But here’s what I think gets lost in the digital noise: Grede’s most important message isn’t about time allocation at all. It’s that the world is not wired for women to win, so we have to make our own rules. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.
But here’s why my daughter’s thriving
Historically, women have been conditioned to make motherhood their entire existence. To put their careers on hold, their friendships on pause, their ambitions on ice. To become so consumed by this new identity that everything else they used to be fades into the background. And I cannot go for that.
I am ambitious. I run a creative agency. I manage million-dollar branded campaigns. I have a full career, a social life and a sense of self that exists independently of my family. And rather than apologize for that, I want to interrogate why so many people are so uncomfortable with it.
Here’s what I know to be true: My daughter is thriving. She tells me every day that I’m her best friend ever. She wants to be where I am, do what I’m doing and be just like me. She loves watching me get dressed for work. She loves that I have friends and wants her own friends and to have her own parties.
Growing up, I watched my mom do the same thing. I used to help her pick out her outfits when she was getting ready to go out with her friends. I used to lace up her heels while she finished putting on her earrings. I saw her laugh with her girlfriends on the phone. I saw her be a woman — not just our mom — and that taught me something super invaluable: There is a balance to be found between being an incredible mother and still being yourself.
That’s the kind of mom I want to be. And that’s the kind of mom my daughter deserves.
So if you’re reading this and you relate, you’re not a bad mom. You’re just refusing to shrink yourself to fit someone else’s lame idea of what motherhood is supposed to look like.
And honestly? That sort of rebellion and independence is the best thing you could ever teach your daughter.
Savannah West writes Ambitious Motherhood, a column on The Edit Desk on Substack, where this essay originally appeared on April 29. West writes about navigating motherhood without losing oneself in the process. She focuses on women building careers, chasing ambitions, and raising kids — all at the same time.
