Jenny Ackland and Lilika May
169 episodes listed below
Teen diaries, sharp tangents, family nerve.
My Mum's Bad Diaries follows Jenny Ackland reading her teenage diaries to Lily Ackland, then letting the entries pull them into conversation. The result is funny, candid, and sharply observant, moving from 1980s social life to reality TV, films, travel mishaps, relationships, and social signals.
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My Mum's Bad Diaries turns decades-old teenage diary entries into a lively two-person record of memory meeting the present tense. Jenny Ackland reads from the notebooks she kept as an 80s teenager, while Lily Ackland listens and responds with curiosity, skepticism, affection, and quick comic timing. The format sounds loose, but it has a strong engine. An ordinary diary detail opens the door, and the conversation keeps finding the larger pattern underneath it. A roast dinner, ice cream, a band night, or an election party can lead into how teenagers used to gather, what public life felt like before constant phones, and why socializing seems to belong to another era. The show is funny first. It is also sharper than its casual rhythm suggests. Reality TV becomes a way to talk about emotional labor, avoidance, gendered expectations, and the odd demand that women absorb the fallout of men's unmanaged feelings. Film chats stretch from Wuthering Heights to Hamnet, with attention to tension, consent, abuse, performance, styling, and why a story can feel dull even when the material is dark. The pair also roam through Love is Blind, Summer House, Carol Bessette, JFK Jr., fashion, fame, editing choices, and the social theater of couples under pressure. Travel stories bring a different kind of chaos. A missed flight in Paris, a bag sent ahead to Cairo, and a delayed plane with a stuck overhead locker become part complaint, part farce, part family checkpoint. The mother-daughter frame matters because it changes the stakes. These are not polished memoir chapters delivered from a distance. They are old selves being read back in real time, with embarrassment, recognition, disagreement, and surprise still in the room. The show works because it lets tiny facts stay tiny for a moment before showing what they reveal. It can be tender. It can be cutting. It is rarely solemn for long. The recurring joke of bad content and not being sued fits the whole enterprise: self-aware, untidy, affectionate, and more perceptive than it pretends to be.
Made for: Best for listeners who like intimate memoir, mother-daughter conversation, reality TV analysis, literary side chats, and social observation with dry humor. It also suits anyone curious about how teenage memory reads when a family revisits it decades later.
What sets it apart: The show uses real chronological diary entries as a launchpad, then lets the conversation move naturally into present-day culture, relationships, fashion, and emotional habits. Its edge comes from the contrast between tiny teenage details and the adult intelligence brought to them afterward.
You're invited to eavesdrop as a mother reads out her teenage diaries to her daughter. Funny, candid, poignant and brave, this podcast is both living memoir and an investigation into what makes (and breaks) a woman. No scripts, no prep; just 40-year-old (diary) gold being unearthed. Even Jenny doesn't know what's going to come up as she lays bare her inner teen world to her daughter Lilika. Their motto is 'we go there', so what could possibly go wrong?
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
A mother and daughter turn teenage diaries into candid conversations about memory, family, changing norms and the stories people tell about themselves.
Jenny Ackland reads her teenage diaries with her daughter Lily Ackland, then lets the old entries collide with two present-day memories of the same family life. My Mum's Bad Diaries makes that gap productive.
A teenage diary opens, and mother-daughter memory work ends with "please don't sue us."
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A diaristic family chat that turns a TV discussion into something sharper.
My Mum's Bad Diaries comes across as a loose, candid conversation built around diary readings, memory, and a mother-daughter exchange that begins in 1980 and keeps returning to the problem of managing feeling well.
A sharp film debrief finds Wuthering Heights missing tension, with Isabella's uncertain consent at its darkest center.
The episode returns to Wuthering Heights as a brisk, companionable film debrief, starting with a Moonlight Cinema screening in Batang Gardens before moving into adaptation choices, period texture, and the harder question of what makes a romance feel alive on screen.
A loose TV conversation that slips into cultural commentary.
The discussion starts with Love Story, JFK Jr., and Carolyn Bessette, then moves into fashion, fame, and the odd freedom people had before phones were everywhere. The details land because they are concrete: the suit, the backwards baseball cap, the bike ride through New York.
Diary readings and travel mishaps give this mother-daughter chat an intimate, lightly comic shape.
My Mum's Bad Diaries follows a mother and daughter as they read diary entries from 1980 onward, and the unforced back-and-forth is a big part of its charm.
A diaristic time capsule that feels funny, candid, and conversational.
My Mum's Bad Diaries turns a 1983 diary entry into a loose, conversational trip back through time. What gives it lift is the back-and-forth: one voice reads, the other responds, and the exchange keeps moving with nudges, laughter, corrections, and the odd tangent.
Anna Martin interviews writers and couples about the real stories behind Modern Love essays.
Knox and Jamie turn celebrity gossip, film deep dives, and streaming news into weekly comedy.
Two hosts revisit one film, show, or book a week, plus long personal tangents.
A Brazilian journalist spends years reinvestigating unsolved child disappearances in Paraná.
Cris Bartz and Juva Lauer alternate debate and interview episodes on Brazilian social issues.
Robert Wright interviews specialists on Iran, Gaza, Ukraine, Taiwan, and open-source AI.
Jenny and Lily start on a freezing March day.
The hosts review Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights and argue that Margot Robbie's Cathy lacks the character complexity and power dynamics required for the adaptation's sexualized romance.
The chat starts with Love Story, JFK Jr., and Carol Bessette.
A mother reads her teenage diaries to her daughter, sparking candid conversations about the past and womanhood.
Jenny and Lily open with a very belated Christmas hello.
A mother reads her teenage diary entries from the 1980s to her daughter, sparking candid conversations about the past and womanhood.
A mother reads her teenage diaries to her daughter, exploring memory, womanhood, and family bonds.
A mother reads her teenage diaries to her daughter, exploring memory, identity, and what shapes a woman's life.
My Mum's Bad Diaries reads a 24 February 1983 diary entry and uses it as a conversational route back into everyday life.
A mother reads her teenage diaries to her daughter, exploring memory, identity, and womanhood through candid conversation.
A mother reads her teenage diaries to her daughter, exploring memories and family dynamics.
A mother reads her teenage diaries to her daughter, sparking candid conversations about the past and womanhood.