One Bad Mother: A Woman's Search for Meaning in Motherhood and the Philadelphia Police Academy

by Megan Williams

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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.

  • ISBN10 1960573853
  • ISBN13 9781960573858
  • Publish Date 17 October 2024 (first published 24 September 2024)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Sibylline Press
  • Format Paperback (US Trade)
  • Pages 209
  • Language English