Your Mother Is an Animal

Last year, the talk of the playground (the part on the side, where parents hang out) was Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a memoir about the author’s attempt to raise her children in a strict, traditional Asian household. Her technique downplayed the Western “obsession” with self-esteem while demanding that her children practice the piano for hours without being allowed to use the bathroom and referring to them by a nickname in Hokkien Chinese that roughly translates to “garbage.” They’re called Tiger Moms because these aggressive, tiger-like parenting tactics are meant to convert children into sleek, nubile, well-adjusted, over-achieving, scholarly tiger cubs. Also, adding “Tiger” to a word makes it sound Asian. But tiger mothers aren’t the only ones out there. Here are some lesser-known animal parenting approaches:

Wolf Mother:
It’s not unusual for the alphas of a wolf pack to shirk off their parenting responsibilities to the community at large. Wolf mothers are alphas. They have taxing, important jobs and rich, rewarding social lives. Have your children live in an orphanage, like a wolf!

Sloth Mother:
Once a week, the sloth will climb down from the safety of its treetop habitat to move its bowels. The sloth mother encourages her children to shit as infrequently as possible, and always on the ground.

Bat Mother:
Bats are small, winged mammals with poor eyesight and big ears and noses. Bat mothers refer to ugly, blind women, and no, they do not like it when you call them that so please stop.

Monkey Mother:
In the wild, lesser primate mothers keep their households clean by eating the fleas, ticks, and lice they find in the coats of their offspring. Monkey mothers adopt this practice, as well. This keeps families feeling particularly close to one another, especially when done in conjunction with Wednesday game night.

Kangaroo Mother:
These marsupial mothers wear their children in a sling or Baby Bjorn at all times. If anyone tries to cause harm to him or her, they kick them with their powerful hindquarters until they die or get out the way of their stroller.

Snake Mother:
Snakes can completely unhinge their jaws. I’ll spell it out for you: MILFs!

Lemming Mother:
Lemmings are small rodents who live in the arctic tundra with a reputation for following the crowd, even when they shouldn’t. Let me put it this way: if you were born in the 80s and your name is Madison, you were raised by a “lemming mother.”

Black Widow Mother:
While this common spider has a reputation for delivering fatal bites, they rarely deliver. Mostly they just chill in damp basements. Black widow mothers encourage their offspring to come home after college and just chill in the basement for a few years, until they get their feet off the ground. No biggie. Oh, they also sometimes devour the entrails of their sexual partners. Geez, keep it down in there, mom!

LOLcat mother:
These moms let their kids surf the internet constantly, it does all of the work for them. They shouldn’t expect grandchildren.

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