True Tale of Terror!

“At the Los Angeles County Fair this week, a mother didn’t bring a jacket for her eight-year-old son. The weather forecast had called for sunshine and temperatures in the eighties; the reality was a drizzly mist and temperatures in the sixties to low seventies. The child in question was wearing shorts and an expression of pleased anticipation; the mother had a light sweatshirt for herself, which she refused to let her son wear after he politely declined the fourth time she tried to put it around his shoulders. The boy is expected to survive the ordeal, but just barely.”

This is the newspaper article that ran through my head as I opened the car door and realized that the weather had not in fact cleared up, as I'd convinced myself it would have every opportunity to do during our two-hour drive inland. As my son and I walked to the front gate, I thought that everyone must be staring at the bad, bad mommy and the poor jacketless waif. I wondered if my son's memoirs would read like Oliver Twist, only sadder and scarier.

Then I realized what an idiot I was being. Sort of. I told the friend I'd driven over with what was going through my head and, as we both had a heartless laugh at my moronity, I joked that someone was going to write me up in the Bad Mommy News. "Do we have that now?" she asked. "We really ought to, shouldn't we?" I answered.

I may have forgotten to properly clothe my only son and heir, but at least I'd remembered my cell phone. I called my husband at work, demanded that he find and acquire a proper domain name -- and not five minutes later, Real Bad Mommies was born.

RBM welcomes photos and stories from readers. We believe that the truth speaks for itself, so all anecdotes and confessions should be as honest as you can possibly stand to make them.