Motherhood is an amazing journey that some women choose to take, and with this new role comes a whole lot of stuff no woman really thought of beforehand. What kind of mom will you be, besides trying to be a good one? Will you be a helicopter mom? Practice attached parenting? Choose to be uninvolved? No one really knows how they will react to motherhood but in my experience "Bad" moms raise independent, strong, and capable people.

So what's a "bad" mom? Well basically it's a mom who doesn't really fall under any particular category, but rather makes her own rules. The first step to being a "bad mom" is to not really care what others think about your parenting style. The second, I guess, is to trust your children. I've heard it from so many of my friends' parents, "prove to us we can trust you." I never understood this because we as children are forced to trust our parents from the day we were born, but they can't give us the human decency to trust us to go hang out with our friends? I'm specifically calling out the moms who have trackers on their kids, really? I get the world is a scary place, but 9/10 they're just making sure you are where you said you are. If anything "bad" moms don't fret over the small stuff and really don't care if you go get ice cream with your friends or choose to stay indoors.

"Bad" moms don't have an agenda for their children. So many parents today have a clear path set out for the children, whether it includes sports, academics, or music a lot of moms feel a need to monitor and push their kids too hard. I'm not saying "bad" moms don't support or love their children but they make it clear if the child wants to pursue something it's the child's dream, not the parents.

Above all, "bad" moms respect children's independence and need to experience the world on their own terms. Here's where my personal experience comes in. My mother, beautiful and flawed, never overstepped and never sheltered me from the world. She wasn't there trying to protect me from my failures or falls, but rather there to help when I did fail that I had the power to get back up. She chose to let me experience and understand the world without her personal opinions interfering, always there to aid in my learning. "Bad" moms are moms who are unapologetic and realize they're not raising children but raising humans. They knew from the start of motherhood the baby days will fade, and will be replaced by curious kids, then independence seeking teens; instead of these moms rebuking the idea of their babies growing up, they embrace it.