One Bad Mother, Megan Williams
One Bad Mother, Megan Williams
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

One Bad Mother
A Mother's Search for Meaning in the Police Academy

Author: Megan Williams

Narrator: Christina Delaine

Unabridged: 7 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/24/2024


Synopsis

After her six-year-old daughter puts a hammer through a wall, Megan Williams decides to abandon a career as an academic and become a police officer.

It's not lost on her that she may have applied to the Police Academy to escape the realities of mothering twins born via IVF at twenty-nine weeks. As the twins grow and test her endlessly, she feels she is failing. She needs a win.

During a grueling application process, Megan measures herself against the other candidates and confronts the normative notions of what it is to be a good mother. The paralyzing fear that she is a bad mother looms large in her head, as does the real possibility that she might not make the cut at the Academy. With its intertwined narratives of police recruitment and motherhood, the memoir provides an unflinching journalistic view of big-city law enforcement, set atop a personal journey during which Megan learns gratitude and makes peace with a motherhood far different from the dream sold to her by our culture.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carrie on November 15, 2024

No matter what generation you’re in, it’s likely that there were/are unrealistic societal expectations of you as a mother (or any new role you’ve taken on.). Megan’s story was particularly relatable for me as a fellow mom of twins with medical/health issues born in the early 2000s (for me, the lean-......more

Goodreads review by Nyoshimura on August 13, 2024

One Bad Mother is the raw, candid, poignant story of one woman’s experience navigating life with premature twins while searching for her own purpose separate from them. She is most definitely not a bad mother, but rather a brutally honest one in a world where the difficulties and lows of motherhood......more

Goodreads review by Sara on April 02, 2025

I expected this to be an enjoyable and humorous memoir about a mother’s journey applying to become a police officer, and it is. I did not expect to relate so deeply to Megan’s story on so many levels. This book is for you if you are: — a mom (or want to better understand a mom) for whom motherhood h......more

Goodreads review by Jodi on August 22, 2024

One Bad Mother takes you on a wild ride and poignantly unpacks the reality of what it means and feels like to be a mother in today’s society. Williams tells her story candidly with raw details that will make your heart ache while you belly laugh through her adventures. Juggling premature twins while......more

Goodreads review by Carol on August 30, 2024

Smartly written and laced with dark humor, One Bad Mother by Megan Williams is a powerful story that will resonate with anyone who questions cultural norms and how they shape our expectations. Anyone who wonders who they’ve become at mid-life or fears they’ve lost their way will identify with Willia......more