Bianca Schulze: I am not a comedy writer and I’m not very good with timing. In fact, the only time I make my family laugh is in moments like watching the movie Inside Out, where the imaginary character Bing Bong disappears. And I start hyperventilating, sobbing, and crying. My family finds that funny.

A hilarious and reassuring gift for every mom: because we’re all doing the best we can, and the natural world is filled with moms worse than you! Bianca Schulze: Yeah, yeah. If I speak to an Australian, they tell me I don’t sound Australian anymore, which is correct. But I went to school my entire life in Australia and of course, we learned about Australian animals, including the koala. And I did not know until I read your book that baby koalas eat their mom’s poop as their first meal. I did not know that. A picture book for adults. And in the Dewey Decimal system, it’s a science book, specifically animal habits and behaviors. I’m not sure what I expected 🤷‍♀️😁 It’s small, like 8x6 and very much like a picture book, just NOT for children. 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.Bianca Schulze: You don’t ever hear about quokkas. And so, I loved that. And, if anybody was to write about a Quokka, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t highlight what you highlighted—is that the moms tossed their kids to the prey as a decoy to keep themselves safe from predators. Yes, I did not know that again. So here I am, excited. Oh, look. It’s the cute quokka. And then no. Sorry. Quokkas. But take heart, even on the days when you fear you’re screwing up your kids and condemning them to a lifetime of therapy, you’re still not the worst mom in the world (no matter what your tween is telling you). The premise is simple: as long as we aren’t eating or abandoning our young on an ice floe, we’re killing it. So, all right. If our listeners were to take away one important point today, what would you want that to be?

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. Bianca Schulze: Yeah, totally. Well, since we’re talking about the Australian animals, I loved that you included the quokka because— 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. Bianca Schulze: So yeah, and it’s totally fine to go put your kid in front of the TV to get that darn shower. There’s an appendix where the animal behaviors used in the the text are explained a bit more fully.Bianca Schulze: So, the focus here on this podcast is always typically children’s books and raising readers. But for Mother’s Day, because it’s coming up soon, I wanted to talk about your picture book that is definitely not for kids.

About the Author Glenn Boozanis a WGA-winning and Emmy-nominated comedy writer whose credits include Conan, Comedy Central’s Lights Out with David Spade, Sarah Silverman’s I Love You, Americaon Hulu,and TruTV’s Adam Ruins Everything. She lives in Los Angeles, a 30-minute drive from her mother, which apparently is still too far. The next time you feel bad for feeding your kid fast food on a busy night, try to remember that koala moms literally feed their babies poop. This is just one of the brilliant and hilarious takeaways from a new adult picture book that actually makes moms feel better about themselves instead of worse.

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.” Who’s to judge me when I’m late for a parent-teacher conference when Lanyu skinks eat the eggs they just laid? 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.

As for thinking your baby is so damn cute, you just want to gobble him up? Take solace in knowing that you won’t ACTUALLY eat him. (I fear I will never look at hamsters the same way again.) Bianca Schulze: I love it. Well, thank you so, so much. And keep making us laugh. And keep making us smile. Thank you. The Children’s Book Review In this episode, I talk with WGA-winning and Emmy-nominated comedy writer Glenn Boozan about her picture book for adults that sheds some humor on parenting, There Are Moms Way Worse Than You: Irrefutable Proof That You Are Indeed a Fantastic Parent. I would say the pivotal moment was when I was younger, learning how to read for the first time. I learned how to enjoy books. So, I would call myself a lover of stories and of writing and of words—and I think that my dad and my mom very much instilled this in me growing up. So that was the moment I think I became obsessed with words. Is being raised by my parents. 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.Glenn Boozan: Oh, okay. So, imagine the most stereotypical nerd with bad posture sitting in front of a computer for long periods of time, just hating everything they’re writing. That’s exactly it. Whatever you’re picturing, that’s what my day-to-day looks like. In high school and then college and beyond, I was really into writing just in general, and I didn’t really know what kind of writing I wanted to do. And then I just pursued different sort of performance outlets or writing outlets. I took a bunch of improv classes, and I joined a comedy sketch team at my college. So, I sort of just experimented here and there until I finally realized what kind of comedy writing and what kind of stuff I wanted to do. I wish I had said some sort of beautiful quote about motherhood, but what I said was, you know, hamster moms eat their babies.” Bianca Schulze: Yeah, I mean, we’re all trying our best, and we all need to believe in ourselves. And yes, I think we can often be the hardest on ourselves.