Who Was the Worst Mother of All Time?

These three mothers will give you nightmares.

I have a tween now, so I get to hear some nasty things like you’re the worst mother EVERRRrrr…hurled in my general direction at any given time. I tried to reason with my kid and explain that I’m a loving, decent, intelligent human capable of being cool and fun, to which my tween responded with severe eye-rolling. But it got me thinking, who was the world’s worst mother? She’d have to have been downright terrifying; the stuff of nightmares. So, I grabbed some coffee, fired up the Wi-Fi, and off I went spelunking down the deepest recesses of the Internet, and holy hell, you guys, there have been some horrifying mothers throughout history.

Here are the stories of three terrifying mothers that sent chills down my spine.

Mary Ann Cotton

(b. 1832, d. 1873)

Cotton was a mother of 13 and thought to have killed upwards of 21 people, including 11 of her children, three husbands, two lovers, a friend, and several acquaintances. She did it for the insurance money, supposedly. Mary Ann moved around Northern England, and a strange trail of death seemed to follow her everywhere she went. Her first two husbands died of bizarre stomach ailments, and she quickly cashed in the insurance policies then moved on to husband number three. She would have killed all four husbands, but husband number three, James Robinson, became suspicious of her insistence that he get covered with life insurance. After a bit of…