A few days ago a reader sent me a link and she was all, “this made me think of you.”

And of course, it had to do with wine.

So I clicked the link and this is what came up…

Naturally, I took the quiz. Here are the results…

Is anyone surprised at the outcome of this quiz?

Anyway, I applaud the Disney company and North America in general for embracing the value of squashed, fermented grapes. And parenting.

Just don’t get behind the wheel of a car if you’ve had some.

Cheers.

(Oh, come on. TAKE THE TEST. Share your results in the comments.)

We’ve already covered parents who give their kids homemade tattoos here at the Bad Moms Club, so let’s move right along, shall we, to parents who allow their children to be tattooed professionally in the name of beauty. Sophie Watson, a 14-year-old from Britain who has her sights firmly set on stardom, recently had several areas of her face tattooed. Since Sophie is too young to be tattooed legally, her mother stepped up and gave her consent.

Sophie didn’t have images tattooed on her; rather, she had certain features enhanced. Eyeliner and lip liner were added, along with a beauty mark, and her eyebrows were enhanced – work that will last for up to five years. Her mother, Joy, a (wait for it) beauty therapist, said the cosmetic tattoos were “the obvious next step” for Sophie, who has 22 pageant titles under her belt and is venturing in to the modeling world.

14-year-old Sophie shows off her new features

“I wasn’t overly worried and, once she’s got an idea in her head, there’s no stopping her,” said Joy of both the tattoo process, and her daughter.

Although Sophie found the seven-hour procedure painful (she cried because having a needle that close to her eye “really freaked her out”), she says she loves her new look, in part because the darker features hide her natural colouring (she already dyes her naturally red hair and eyebrows dark brown, and is thinking about laser treatments to remove her freckles).

So, what say you, folks? Do you find this as completely outrageous, in the ‘our daughters are beautiful enough without having their faces tattooed on’ sense, as I do? Would you give consent if your teenager wanted to get their facial features tattooed on?

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My six year old goes back to school in exactly two weeks. I’m not exactly thrilled. I’m actually kind of wishing I could go back to when the babe was too young for school.  Sadly, my time traveling skills are a little rusty at the moment. Instead, I choose to give the whole thing the nasty stink eye. I promise you, I have my reasons.

To me, back to school sucks the almighty lemon because it means I need to:

1. Brush my hair
2. Put on something other than pajama bottoms and a three day old tank top
3. Shave things

Doing all that before I even leave the house? That is just so wrong. Add to that, once I get to this particular school and see all the other mothers, most of whom have their very own entries in the snooty, boring or mute section of the dictionary, the real fun begins.

So now, I have to:

• Smile my best fake smile (which means that I should probably add – 4. Brush my teeth – to the above list).

• Stand up straight (Crap – now I need to add – 5. Wear my best brassiere – to that list too).

• Make safe small talk (Safe statements such as “How was your summer?” or “Did you have a good summer?” or “Wow, can you believe that summer?” are always safe bets and sure to be a joy to repeat over and over again.)

• Mention camping at some point, because evidently 99% of the population camp, and don’t actually realize how much camping sucks. (Let me let you in on a little secret – camping sucks).

Normally at this point, if the praying to the time dogs has worked, the bell has rung and the boy is safely in his classroom – Success.

Thankfully, this means I get to finally:

• Hit Starbucks – because, yes, all this misery has occurred before my first sip of latte.

• Worry about things like germs, lice, bullies, and other mothers while I drink said latte.

• Rejuvenate my stink eye by closing my eyes and meditating about kittens and pink things.

Back to school – it explains the grey hair.

The thing that blows my mind about this story of three children who took off on their dream vacation without their parents realizing it isn’t so much that they took off without their parents realizing it – I mean, they’re probably of the free-range variety and who notices these things, anyway? – but where they took off to.

Not Disneyland. Not Disney World. Not the Harry Potter ride at the Universal Studios theme park. Dollywood.

Dollywood.

News reports covering the story are all worked up over the fact that three children made it through airport security on their own, without being questioned. This, I think, misses the whole point of the story: these children know who Dolly Parton is and they tried to visit her.

THAT’S the kind of thing that gives me, as a parent, nightmares.

You know what’s amazing? When you put a story out there, and more stories come back. It’s like that old saying, ‘if you love something, set it free…’ except that in this case, it would be ‘if something is eating at you, write about it on the Internet; if it comes back to you with hundreds of other people telling their own versions of that experience, then that proves that the Internet is full of frustrated people just bursting at the seams to vent their issues.’ Which was never really in doubt, I don’t think, but still.

That post of mine that went up at AOL’s Lemondrop? That I talked about here, the other day? Also ended up on AOL’s front page, which means that a whole bunch of insane people left psychotic comments, but also means that a whole bunch of perfectly sane people weighed in, and also came here, and also sent me tons and tons of mail, only some of which was mean. A common thread? EVERYBODY – or, ALMOST everybody – has in-law issues, and 99% of those everybodies wishes they could talk about it.

So. Expect a lot of in-law stories in the Basement in the coming weeks and months. I’ve received dozens, just in the last 12 hours. And if you have one of your own, please, feel free to send it in (anonymously, or as you like). Or, of course, just share it here. You know we’d love to hear it.

This, my friends, is a sad, sad, sign o’ the times: Laurence Fishburne’s daughter, Montana, 18, is putting out a sex tape in order to attain fame and fortune. She’s doing this, she says, because she wants to follow in Kim Kardashian’s footsteps.

“I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape,” Montana explained.

In the film, which is slated to be released later this month via Vivid Entertainment, Montana, who goes by the name Chippy D, mainly stars alongside her boyfriend, a kid who goes by the moniker J Pipes. (And I say ‘kid’ because that’s what we’re dealing with her, KIDS. I mean, this guy looks all of what, 17? 18, maybe?)

Montana, a.k.a. Chippy D., and her alleged co-star/boyfriend, J Pipes

Ugh, ugh, UGH. This is just sad, and I find it rather shocking. Not the sex tape part – is anyone really shocked by sex tapes anymore? – but that Montana is standing up and  telling it like it is: she’s doing porn to get famous, like Kim Kardashian before her. I mean, WOW. What does that say about Hollywood these days?

And what, if anything, will Kim say about this? Will she go on the record to dissuade Montana from putting it on tape, or will she keep quiet about the whole thing and thrive off of the publicity like a big ol’ plastic leech?

(Apologies to anyone who is a fan of Kim Kardashian. The woman does nothing for me; the more I read about her, the further my respect for her plummets.)

The fact that a beautiful young woman with real connections to Hollywood and the rest of her life ahead of her wants to put out a sex tape so she can make it like Kim Kardashian did is absolutely repulsive to me. What’s the old saying – you never get a second chance to make a first impression? I really wish Montana would re-think this career move.

And – need we even ask this? – WHERE ARE HER PARENTS? Or are we overstating this ‘kid’ angle? Is it a sign of bad – bad bad – parenting if your kid decides at 18 to make a sex tape? What do you think? BAD MOMS WANNA KNOW.

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Picture it: you are out on a fishing trip with your 14 year old daughter. Everything is cool, you are having a great time, and the all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a barracuda viciously attacks your daughter, mauling her arm and making it look like ground beef in places.

What do you do?

Well, if you’re the dad in this story, you take lots of pictures to share with the Internet!

Granted, he probably didn’t have anything else do on the way back to shore — because applying pressure to wounds and comforting a freaked out teenager are, arguably, not all that taxing — BUT how does he explain taking the shot below when they got back to shore? He actually took the time to take a picture of the fish AND his daughter. Together. Just the way I’m sure his daughter wanted it. I mean, look at that girl.

That girl looks like she is a (a) in shock and (b) contemplating consulting a lawyer for legal emancipation.

Click over here to see what the wounds look like (if you dare), I couldn’t publish them because they freaked me out too much. For the record: if that was my kid, I doubt I would have taken the time to record this one for posterity but that’s probably just me. Right?

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Some years ago my husband gave me a pair of slippers for Christmas, shaped like puppies – puppies in whose nether orifices one was supposed to stick one’s feet – and he was pretty pleased with himself for having thought of such an awesome gift, because, as he reminded me, I had “always wanted a puppy.”

Thankfully, at that stage in our lives, I had not expressed a yearning for a baby…

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I started off writing this post in a snarky, satirical tone, but as I wrote I found myself becoming more and more bothered by this picture. It made me laugh at first – that equal parts shock/disgust/OMFG!/I’m-so-uncomfortable-I-have-to-laugh laugh, you know the one – but I can’t unsee this picture and I can’t get it out of my head. We’ve seen some doozies at the Bad Moms Club before, but this one? Well, there’s something about this one that really puts me off…

She’s holding that tiny little baby way too close to the electrical outlet.

*Sigh*

See? Satirical humor doesn’t work on this one. This picture’s not funny, it’s downright TRAGIC. I weep for this child’s future.

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Here’s kind of a curious story out of Ocala, Florida: Amber Ullman claims her two daughters were discharged from their pediatrician’s practice because she declined to answer a question about firearms in her home.

She and her ped were going through some questions when he asked if she had any firearms in the house. She hesitated before deciding not to answer – a move that she says cost her kids their doctor.
“There was no reason for him to discharge my children other than I refused to answer did I have a firearm in my home,” Amber says, adding that the worst part is the fact that her kids have to suffer because of her decision not to answer the question.

It’s noted in the article that pediatricians are urged by the American Academy of Pediatricians to discuss the dangers of guns with parents and advocate their removal from the home. Also mentioned is that there’s no law stating that a doctor *must* see a patient. Amber says her doctor didn’t give her anything in writing or a specific reason for discharging her family.

I’d like to think that there’s some back story missing here – events leading up to this that prompted Amber’s ped to drop her family, or something along those lines. I agree that it’s her kids who are affected the most by this – what are your thoughts?

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