You can't write anything in public about what you actually do as a mother.

Poor Annie Lamott, kind human of the decade, confessed in Salon that she totally lost it one afternoon and slapped her teenage son across the face. She was horrified (although anyone who has raised a teenager knows that look, the cold, insolent, hateful "I dare you" look that comes after weeks of misery, and can easily understand Annie's moment...) .. but you should have seen the letters.

As it was, the readers worked up into a frenzy that ended up accusing her of near-psychotic abuse of her son, pathological and possibly criminal exloitation for having written about it, and so on.

Had she not slapped him they would blame her for an entire generation of damaged children, spoiled, castrated, etc etc etc.

The Mother is, was and always will be the target of a hatred and bitterness that reaches way beyond culture and times. You will be called a bad mother no matter what you do