The next time you start bitching out your mom for buying you the wrong type of underwear (damnit Ma, I said boxers!), stop and take a breather. It could be worse. Much worse, as it turns out. For instance, you mom could have tortured you throughout your formative years. No, not like the way your mother tortured you with her turkey meatloaf. I'm talking about actual torture. The kind of stuff that makes Gitmo look like Disneyland.

From drowning kids in bathtubs to forcing their children into incest, the mothers on this list are the worst of the worst. Well, at least the worst of the last 20 years (I'm not sifting through all of history. I'm just not).

5.) Starkeisha Brown and Krystal Matthews

This 25-year-old mother and Krystal Matthews, her 19-year-old live in girlfriend, tortured a 5-year-old boy for years. An anonymous tip to Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services said that there was a problem at the family's home. Soon, government officials ordered the two women to come into CFS office with the boy. Instead of bringing the kid in question, however, they borrowed a neighbor's child and tried to pass it off as their own.

Apparently, they didn't think their cunning plan all the way through, because their real kid was discovered by a neighbor and the authorities were called. The boy was hung by his hands and wrists from a door jam and beaten with some sort of leash or chain on a daily basis. He was also routinely starved, while Starkeisha and her girlfriend ate in front of him. When the two got bored with that game, they would put out cigarettes on his face and genitals.

The child also had an exposed nerve in one of his teeth, which made bedtime brushing kind of a pain in the ass. As if all that weren't enough, Ms. Brown would hold his hands to a hot stove (presumably after cooking something that he couldn't eat), which caused irreparable damage.

As an added bonus, the women forgot to disable their MySpace pages before heading off to jail on June 14, 2008. If you're interested, you can see Krystal Matthew's MySpace page here, or take a gander at Starkeisha's page here. I don't think you can friend them, though...jail can make those friend approvals kind of tricky.

4.) Melissa Drexler (AKA: The Prom Mom)

Don't you just hate it when you're at your high school prom, trying to get your dance on, when the pesky baby that has been marinating in your uterus for the last 9 months decides to kung-fu kick its way out? I know I do, and so did Melissa Drexler.

After arriving with friends at the Aberdeen Township Banquet Hall in New Jersey (really, where else would this happen?), for the Lacey Township High School prom, Drexler went to the women's restroom and gave birth to a son within about 20 - 30 minutes, with her friends right outside the stall. She told her friend, "Go tell the boys I'll be right out."

Once she gave birth, Drexler starting sawing through the umbilical cord on the side of a little metal trash can (bonus points for being resourceful!). Not one to let such a trivial thing ruin her prom night, she then threw the baby in the garbage and hit the dance floor. Senior prom only comes once in a lifetime, and she sure as hell wasn't gonna miss it for nothin'!

On October 29, 1998, Drexler pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter. This is the statement that she read before being sentenced:

"I knew I was pregnant. I concealed the pregnancy from everyone. On the morning of the prom my water broke. While I was in the car on the way to the prom, I began to have cramps. I went to the prom and I went into the bathroom and delivered the baby. The baby was born alive. I knowingly took the baby out the toilet and wrapped a series of garbage bags around the baby. I then placed the baby in another garbage bag, knotted it closed and threw it in the trash can. I was aware of what I was doing at the time when I placed the baby in the bag. And I was further aware that what I did would most certainly result in the death of the baby."

 

She was promptly given 15 years in prison. However, because she was a "model prisoner", she was released in November of 2001. Let me do that math for you: she served three years of her sentence.

While imprisoned, Drexler took courses in fashion. Judging by the blue-green nail polish and snazzy floral/denim number she's wearing in that picture, I think she kind of has a knack for it. Now that she's on the streets, her lawyer said that she hopes to get a job in the industry. So, the next time you take a fashion design course to meet chicks, keep an eye out for a 28-year-old girl with prison tats. She may be Melissa Drexler.

3.) Susan Smith

Sometimes, the pressures of motherhood can be a bit overwhelming (just ask Andrea Yates, who we'll get to in a minute). Instead of taking a Calgon moment or investing in some retail therapy, on October 25, 1994 Susan Smith decided to strap her two boys into her 1990 Mazda Protoge and roll the car into a lake.

Much like the lesbians in the #5 spot, Suzie didn't think her plan all the way through. Surely, those two boys were going to be missed. Maybe by their father, or something? So, Mrs. Smith did the rational thing and quickly alerted the police that her car had been stolen by a black guy, with the two babies in the backseat.

Because black dudes are scary and white kids that go missing are a pretty big deal, the story made international news. Police soon figured out that her story wasn't adding up, and after nine days Smith admitted to killing her children. Her reason? She wanted have a relationship with a wealthy local man who had no interest in a "ready-made" family.

Susan is now in prison, and won't be eligible for parole until 2024. However, jail has been anything but boring for the child killer. So far, she's been in trouble for having sexual relations with two separate prison guards and at one point had a profile up on WriteAPrisoner.com. That Saucy Susan, always getting into trouble!

2.) Andrea Yates

Don't let her astonishing good looks fool you, this is one crazy bitch. Married to Russell "Rusty" Yates, a computer programmer for NASA, Andrea's vows included a promise to have "as many babies as nature allowed." She ended up blessing five kids with her DNA, all of which she drowned in the bathtub on June 20, 2001.

Apparently, she had a mixture of psychosis with a sprinkle of postpartum depression (or as I like to call it, "a big case of the sads"). She was set to go to trial a couple of different times, but was deemed too crazy. Now, she spends her days in a minimum security mental health facility in Kerrville, Texas. At one point, her roommate was Dena Schlosser, a sexy little nymph who would have been #6 on this list...too bad it's only the Top 5.

1.) An Unnamed Irish Chick 

(yes, she's Irish, but no not her)

Like all things in America these days, the #1 spot on this list had to be outsourced to another country. This woman is so bad, she has never been named (in order to protect the children that she ruthlessly tortured). For the sake of this article, I'll call her, um, Ruth.

Ruth is a 40-year-old alkie from Roscommon, Ireland. Admittedly "the worst mother in the world," her crimes include forcing her 13-year-old son to have sex with her, heating the house only once a month, gross neglect and starvation of the children.

Ruth would go out drinking every night, returning home to her six kids between 3am and 4am. While she was gone, the son that she forced sexual intercourse with would take care of the other children. On average, they ate twice a week.

In 1996, social workers were alerted to the abuse. Health chiefs tried to take the children into care in 2000 but a group, described in court as a Catholic right-wing organization, helped the mother financially and she won a High Court case blocking the care order. That's the Catholic church for you, always looking out for the little ones.

When the authorities finally removed the kids from their rat and feces ridden hovel, they found that all of them had lice and their clothes hadn't been washed. Ever. Some even had frostbite.

Ruth was convicted of 10 crimes, with sentences ranging between 10 months and 7 years. They'll run concurrently.