Sarcasm = Bad Mommy

One day last year, my daughter was acting as though she had been raised by a pack of beagles. She was loud, out of control and in general, all over the map. I looked over at her, rolled my eyes and said, "Child, you need to be medicated." She giggled, I smiled and she was distracted enough to calm down.

I dismissed ever saying that because in our house, sarcasm rules. If you were a stranger sitting in our kitchen and heard the conversations, you might be shocked and wonder why my husband and I ever got married (and procreated, for that matter). If you were a friend, you would laugh, because that's who we are.

If you are my daughter's teacher, you call me up to ask what particular medication my daughter needs to be on, and "why hasn't the school been notified that she needs to be medicated?"

HOLY CRAP. Try being the mom on that particular parental gem and tell me how you feel afterwards. When I heard the teacher ask me "why, why, why," I was stunned. It took me forever to figure out what on earth she was talking about. I asked her if she was sure she was calling the right parent. Her response? "Well, she was acting up a bit in class, which was unusual for her, so I asked her what was wrong with her. She looked at me and said that her mother told her she needed medication."

I had to explain to this teacher that I had made that particular comment on a particularly LOUD and UNRULY day for my daughter (who DOESN'T have a kid with days like that?), and while I shouldn't have said it, I truly didn't mean it - it was simply a flip remark. Nothing more.

"Well, here at this school, we don't joke about matters like this, we take them VERY seriously."

I wonder what they would have said if I had ever made the comment, "what are you smoking?" to my kids...which I haven't, and I swear I won't... ever. Well, at least not until they are 18, out of my house and can be held fully responsible in a court of law for anything they do. Because then? It won't make me look any worse as a mother than I did to that one teacher, that one day.