In the illustrated book Hay mamás mucho peores que tú (“There Are Much Worse Moms Than You”), Emmy-nominated American author Glenn Boozan uses the animal world to lighten the guilt many women feel as mothers and to show that imperfections are part of the journey.
Glenn Boozan, the screenwriter of Fly Hard (2024) and late-night shows like I Love You, America (2018), is not a mother herself. However, inspired by her sisters, she wrote a humorous illustrated album that has become a great gift idea for Christmas, aiming to bring a smile to mothers and temporarily alleviate their worries.
“My two sisters are fantastic mothers, but despite that, they sometimes express feelings of inadequacy when it comes to raising their kids. I decided to write this book because I wanted them to know that I, and everyone around them, think they’re doing a wonderful job,” Boozan tells EL PAÍS. The idea for the book—her third comic, but the first to be translated into Spanish—started when one of her sisters confided that she often felt like a bad mother. “It was a total surprise because, objectively, Alex is an amazing mother. To make her feel better, I said, ‘Well, you know that hamster moms eat their babies. So, compared to them, you’re doing great,'” Boozan recalls. That comparison made her sister laugh, giving Boozan the idea to turn it into a Mother’s Day card.
Years later, that comparison turned into the illustrated album Hay mamás mucho peores que tú, which became a bestseller in the United States and Italy. Now, in December, it arrives in Spain thanks to the publisher Litera Libros, with translation by Héctor Arnau. In it, Boozan explores the animal kingdom to find examples of “bad moms” that are so extreme that any human mother would feel better comparing themselves to them. There’s the hamster mom, of course, but also the giraffe mom, who kicks her babies to make them walk; cuckoo moms, who hide their eggs in other birds’ nests; and harp seal moms, who abandon their babies after just two weeks to search for a new mate. These maternal figures are depicted in the colorful and playful illustrations by muralist Priscilla Witte, adding a touch of irreverence to the book.
“The animal moms I mention in the book are definitely the most extreme examples of bad mothers. That was absolutely intentional because very often, the mistakes that moms feel guilty about are things that no one else would even notice. For example, they feel guilty if their child gets a bad grade, if they stay up too late multiple nights in a row, or if they have pizza for dinner because mom was tired after work,” explains Boozan. After all, as Boozan points out in the book, if a koala mother feeds her babies her own feces, what’s so wrong about giving your kids a cold slice of pizza for dinner one night?
Making Mistakes Is Part of Being a Mother… and a Father
Hay mamás mucho peores que tú begins with a series of “What if…?” questions. It could be said that having a child fills your life with “What if…?” and fears that were previously unknown: fear of illness, of not measuring up, of causing trauma, of not providing the best nutrition, or of damaging them by letting them watch too much TV. “In my family, humor is a fundamental way of dealing with negative experiences. Joy is my favorite antidote to catastrophic thoughts,” says Boozan, who humorously refuses to share her age, a fact even beyond the reach of artificial intelligence tools.
For Boozan, these fears—the “What ifs?”—have grown in recent decades alongside the professionalization of parenting, fueled by the internet and social media, making parenting even more intense. “Mother’s guilt has existed since the beginning of time, but when I was a child, there weren’t thousands of companies showing up on your phone to make you feel like garbage for giving your kid the wrong yogurt,” she argues. Boozan directly calls out social media platforms like Instagram: “They can be a valuable tool for creating community among mothers, but essentially, they’re an advertising machine designed to generate profits. Sometimes, moms are afraid they’re not doing a good enough job, and the corporations out there capitalize on this fear.”
A fear as human as the ability to make mistakes. “When a woman becomes a mother, she doesn’t become a robot, so the only thing guaranteed when you become a mother is that you’re going to make many mistakes,” says Boozan. In addition to calling for empathy and understanding for those doing the “invaluable and exhausting work of raising the next generation,” she offers advice for mothers that could apply to any area of life: “Setting expectations of perfection is the fastest way to guarantee failure.”
This advice is also valid for fathers, who, according to Boozan, are increasingly involved in raising children—at least in the United States. The book includes several fathers, such as the pipefish father, who eats his babies if he thinks they’re ugly. Boozan has even published a follow-up book in the United States titled There Are Dads Way Worse Than You, where the “bad dads” are fictional characters like Walter White from Breaking Bad, Darth Vader, and Thanos from Marvel. “Just like moms, I want dads to know that it’s okay not to be perfect all the time,” concludes the author.