DDG-have you been reading that Taking Children Seriously website? You are NOT a mean mommy! You did your job!
My mother would’ve laughed at me had I pulled that stunt. YOU are so much like my own mom, it kills me.
I know I’m going to be the MEANEST mother alive if I ever have kids.
goodness, duck, duck, goose, i wish more people in my office had mum’s like you. out of an office of appox. 200 people there is only one person who consistantly gets things done by thier deadline, or in his case well before. i know this man has NO idea how loved he is by the support staff. all future co-workers of the cat who walks alone are grateful to you. thank you for standing firm.
DDG, the technicians from the lab will be by shortly to collect a tissue sample. We will be cloning from your genome as soon as the technology is perfected.
{{{{{{{Duck Duck Goose}}}}}
The baddest mother on the whole SDMB. 
DDG, you’re not mean.
I know whereof I speak.
My father was mean.
You’re not my father.
That was a compliment.
Ya know what’s a really good way to get your car privileges revoked? In the middle of a summer night, go outside and grab a garden hose. Take off the spray-handle and insert end into father’s pickup truck. Turn water on full blast, then go to sleep with a smile on your face. “Revenge is sweet”, you think.
Then YOUR car grows wings and flies away.
Not that I did that, or anything…
Duck, I second what Holden said, write a book, please! It will save me from having to print off all of your pearls of parental wisdom and filing them away at home for when I have kids! Seriously, I cannot tell you how much I admire your parenting skills–I want to be just like you when I grow up!
Last weekend I had to tell my 5 year-old that she couldn’t
go to a birthday party. It was her first party since she
started school and she was all dressed up ready to go, and
she had an “accident”. I put it in quotes because this
is a problem. She was playing and didn’t want to go into
the bathroom. We changed her and told her if it happened
again, she wasn’t going. Not 5 minutes later, it happened
again, and she admitted she just didn’t want to stop playing
with her toys. So we told her she couldn’t go to the party,
and had to stay in her room. She was upset, to say the
least, but its what had to be done. At least thats what
I tell myself. I feel bad about taking what should have
been a milestone for her and having to use it for a lesson.
I know I did the right thing, but sometimes it still doesn’t
feel good. DDG, you did the right thing too.
I also had to be the Mean Mommy today to my daughter; not because I was making her go to school, but because I was making her stay home from school today. She has been running fevers all weekend and has had a pretty nasty cough. The fever broke Sunday afternoon, but she was up most of the night coughing, so I decided to keep her home today so she could try and get some rest. My daughter had a screaming fit about this. She wanted to go to school really bad, but her bad old mommy was making her stay home. My daughter is affectionately referred to as “The Drama Queen”. You so much as look at her wrong, and she screeches like somebody is beating her with a baseball bat. This is also the daughter who acts up at the store and then screams at top volume “MOMMY, DON’T BEAT ME!!!” when I tell her to stop misbehaving. I can only imagine what the neighbors must think, considering how loudly she screams at even the tiniest thing.
BTW, when I was a teenager and I would refuse to go to school, my mother would say “okay, fine, stay home. I need somebody to scrub out the garbage pails and the toilet today anyway”. My mother would put me to work, making me clean the house top to bottom. I only pulled that trick a couple of times before I learned that it was easier to simply go to school.
A friend of mine (who had kids before we did) told me that I might as well just start with admitting to the ‘mean mommy’ thing from the first trial of toddlerhood. When I do something I know my son doesn’t like (a lot), I calmly admit to being the meanest mommy in the world. It makes me feel better if I say it first. And eventually, they realize that it isn’t true, even if they wish they could make the term stick. There’s so much that is meaner than what you did! (or what I do…)
(the following happened after I made the mistake of actually buying a package of gummy bears at the grocery store…)
Gabe: I want gummy bears! (says the 3-yr-old at 6:30 in the morning)
Mean Mommy: Nope, sorry. No gummy bears for breakfast. You can have muffins, or cereal.
G: I WANT GUMMY BEARS FOR BREFFAST!
MM: First, no gummy bears for breakfast. Second, you didn’t say please. Third, even if you say please, gummy bears are still not for breakfast. And fourth, you didn’t use a nice voice. You can have some after lunch if you eat a good lunch, but you cannot have any for breakfast.
G: (extra cute routine) But I wike gummy bears for breakfast. PWEESE!??? (blink blink, smile sweetly)
MM: Thanks for asking so nicely, but sorry, too bad, gummy bears are still not for breakfast. Cereal, muffins - or, hey, yogurt, if you want?
G: (crying and angry faces, stubbornly saying nothing)
MM: (half to myself) Yep, I’m the meanest mommy in the world, not letting you have gummy bears for breakfast. Cereal, muffins, or yogurt?
G: I don’t WANT you to be a mean mommy! (stomp) I don’t WIKE mean mommies. (scowl)
MM: (sadly, but understandingly) Oh, that’s too bad. Cereal, muffins, or yogurt?
G: (starting to realize he’s going to lose) Don’t say that. That’s BAD. Don’t say ‘too bad’ I don’t wike it! (desperately) I want gummy bears!
MM: Cereal, muffins, or yogurt.
G: (pause… sniffle) … (subdued) Cereal, pwease. (perking up) Mommy cereal - fwosted fwakes!
I also make him brush his teeth, at least TRY to limit the number of time-wasters before bed, and enforce other horrible rules like holding hands when crossing the street. Meanie.
And my mom made me go to school when I was sick with terror because of not having done my homework (second grade; I’d told her I didn’t have any, because I wanted to play). I wish she had explained it half so well as you did (I didn’t need it to get the grades, I needed it to learn how to follow through and be responsible for assigned tasks even if I didn’t like them). I wish she had kept browbeating me about it, too - I simply declined to do most homework from second grade on through high school. (afterall, I could wing it and still get decent grades…) It took me getting a set of mid-term D’s in college to get with the program. Even scarier, then. And harder to learn. I’m still working on that one.
I don’t think you’ve won Mean Mommy of the Year, yet. Keep trying, you might get a shot at one of the 10 runner-up slots, though! 
(My friend from the first paragraph says she has won it a few years running, according to her kids…)
Shadowfox - I tried the humiliating my mom in public thing once (throwing a fit of some sort, I don’t remember). When we got home, my mom walked into the living room and threw a screaming, lying down, foaming at the mouth kiniption fit (however you spell that…). She got down on the floor and out-tantrumed me. She then threatened to do that in public if I ever tried it again, and BOY did she look like she meant it. It worked. I was so horrified that she would actually do that and people would think my mother was insane … I’d have been horrified, humiliated, mortified… I was on my best behavior for years after that. Literally.
Don’t know if that card would work for you, but might be worth a shot? Ignoring me worked on dramatic moments, too.
My mom has a great philosophy in that matter that I am planning on using on my kids in this situation. Since I’m a PK and my mom is a preachers wife, we dont lie…yes, you might not believe it, but we dont lie. anyways, Mom doesnt feel comfortable to write a note saying “Josh diddnt feel well yesterday” when I diddnt. Mom did say though that it is possible to be so stressed that you dont feel well. Instances like that I can stay home for a “mental health day”
Personally though, I think that if your daughter spent two hours just hanging out, thats not acceptable. I’m 16 myself, and have gone to church all my life, been in Drama since 7th grade and know about the youth group situation. yes, she should have asked someone else to do the snacks, snuck out a little early (heck, red_dragon60 and I have a Monty Python skit/play comming up here this week, I know what I’m talking about :)). Going to church still is a good Idea, but Its all a matter of prioritys. but, as I said, I’m only 16. what do I know?
Thank you to everybody for being so nice and supportive in this thread (now that the crisis is over).
Update: When she got home from school, I said, “Well?”
“Well what?” Blank look.
“What happened?”
“What happened what?” It’s more important for her to check her e-mail than to talk to her mom.
“What happened with the chemistry thing?”
“Oh, that.” :rolleyes: [implication of ancient history]
“Well?”
“Well…” and there followed about a paragraph of mumbling, from which I extracted the information (I think) that the teacher didn’t collect the one assignment, and as for the other, The Cat had, sort of, punted, or something, mumble mumble mumble…
I tactfully did not pursue the matter.
So, we all survived. Thank you all for your participation.