Bianca Schulze: I love it. I love it, too. I think every parent has maybe not done that but has at some point felt that way. This is one of the cutest books ever. It has a lot of facts that are not only interesting, they are fun, too. It makes a fantastic, very memorable gift. A hilarious and reassuring gift for every because we’re all doing the best we can, and the natural world is filled with moms worse than you!

Nobody benefits from me being mean to myself. My work doesn’t get done faster or doesn’t get done better. The people around me don’t like me more and it doesn’t serve anyone. And so, I think that just that little thought sometimes helps me realize, like, oh, okay, I can calm down. Like, the stakes of this are not as high as I think. If I make a mistake, that’s fine. No one’s going to die, you know? No one’s going to explode unless you’re a quokka, baby. Bianca Schulze: And then Laurie Kilmartin, the author of—and sorry, if you happen to be listening to this episode, any listeners in the car, I am about to say a bad word, so cover your kid’s ears. The author of Sh*tty Mom says, “I love this book! It sounds like a song whenread out loud,and it’s so funny and sweet thatI almost want to have another baby. Almost.” An encouraging book for any parent who is questioning their ability to successfully raise a child. Consider the quokka: Glenn Boozan: Oh my, gosh. That is the best. That is the best review of the book I’ve ever heard. That’s great. I might steal it. Glenn Boozan: Isn’t that one great? She wrote a whole rhyme scheme. I was like, well, it’s funnier than what I—it’s better than what I wrote.

Comedy writer Glenn Boozan has written the mother of all books to make us moms feel better about ourselves. Glenn Boozan: I don’t think that laughter is like the cure for everything, but I do think it’s a really good starting place to sort of breakthrough or start to break through some of the shame and self-judgment that I think a lot of parents, especially moms, who I think just by default, society puts a lot of the onus and work and responsibility on them to raise future humans. And so, I wasn’t even planning on making it a book. I originally just wrote a rhyming poem as a Mother’s Day card for my sister. And then I was looking around to get somebody to illustrate it and just do a couple of drawings for it. And then my manager and his wife read it and they were like, oh, wait, we as parents, this resonates, this should be more—this should be a book. And so that’s the story of how the book was born. A picture book for adults. The art was okay, there could have been more of it. Some of the animal facts were presented with misleading context to justify the title, some of them were presented more accurately. I wish I had said some sort of beautiful quote about motherhood, but what I said was, you know, hamster moms eat their babies.”

Glenn Boozan: So, I was hanging out with my sister a year or two ago, and she has two kids. So, she was pregnant with her second and raising her toddler at the time. And she expressed to me panic and stress about being a bad mom. Or she was like, oh, I don’t know if I’m feeding my kids the right things and blah, blah, blah. And I was sort of looking at her like, Alex, what are you talking about? You’re the perfect mother. Glenn Boozan: Most surprised me. That’s a good one. I will say, and I don’t know, I’m not going to use bad language, but this is gross what I’m about to say. But it’s in the book. So, a koala mom—like when you picture koalas, they’re so cute and fuzzy and you’re like, oh my gosh. And they eat little eucalyptus leaves. But I guess like the baby koalas can’t eat eucalyptus yet when they’re very young. And so, the first solid meal that a koala mom feeds her babies is her own poop, unfortunately. And I wish there was a more delicate way to say that, but it’s just disgusting. The premise is simple: as long as we aren’t eating or abandoning our young on an ice floe, we’re killing it. Here’s a question that I ask everyone, and I’m fascinated to hear your take on it as a comedy writer and not specifically as a children’s book writer. So, I always ask, to be a writer, they say you need to be a reader first. So, was there a pivotal moment when you considered yourself a reader? Boozan is a comedy writer who just won a 2022 Writers Guild Award for her work on Conan — and who has also written for shows like Lights Out With David Spade and Sarah Silverman’s I Love You, America.So stop feeling bad about feeding your kids fast food, there are worse things you could be feeding them. Like shit, apparently. Glenn Boozan: Oh, boy. Well, it sounds like a copout, but I really do want everyone to know—the moms listening—that there are moms way worse than you. I know it’s the title of the book, but I wanted the title to sort of be the message as well. And I promise you, I promise you, promise you, promise you, like my mom, sometimes we’ll talk about mistakes she made raising me and I’ll be like, I don’t remember that. I promise you; that your kids are going to love you because you’re trying your best. And it’s all right to give yourself some grace when you’re feeling bad about yourself or whatever or however you are as a parent.