Renegade Mom

This is going to be a sad story about a mother of two who has hit rock bottom. Now if you are the type of person who is always on time for the carpool, remembers to attend PTA meetings, and balances your checkbook, just click the "Back" button. This column is not for you. If, on the other hand, you are the type of mother who arrives in the school parking lot as the morning bell rings, forgets birthdays, and routinely loses permission slips, read on. You will soon feel a lot better about yourself.

You see, yesterday, in the rush to get my children out the door on time, I sent my five-year old son to school without his teddy bear. Now, of course, this may not seem like such a bad problem to you. However, yesterday was the annual teddy bear picnic, which means, as you've probably figured out, that every kindergartner gets to bring their favorite teddy bear to school.

Oh, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that only the worst kind of parent could leave their child bearless. And, believe me, you are absolutely right. But, before you start writing letters and calling the authorities and all that, I want you to know that the minute I realized my mistake I threw myself at my son's feet and begged for forgiveness.

"Mom, it's OK," he shrugged. "Stop crying. There were extras."

But let's face it. Even though everyone was nice about it, I still feel guilty. Besides, we all know what's really going on here. Any request for a child to bring something to school is really the teacher's way of seeing exactly what kind of parent you are. And, now, I'm branded for the rest of the year as the kind of irresponsible mother who does nothing but lay around the house in pajamas watching daytime talk shows and drinking beer out of a brown paper bag.

Oh, I could've made excuses. Like we had an out-of-state emergency and didn't have time to get the bear or that it had fallen out of the car window on the way to school.

But that wouldn't be true. Besides, it could happen to anybody, right? RIGHT?

In my defense, I'm really a good parent. It's just that, sometimes, I end up making the wrong impression.

Like the time I took my kids to the library. Everything was going great until we got to the checkout desk and I couldn't find my card. This meant that my information had to be looked up in the computer. So they punched in our phone number and brought up my entire borrowing history. And, let me tell you, I bet criminals in the federal penitentiary have a cleaner record than me.

First of all, it listed all of the times I requested a new card. Then it said I lost a magazine. On top of that, it showed I owed fines for a book that I had checked out sometime in 1993.