What do you do?

Obviously, you grab the baby and hand her the last half of your toast as you lock her in her car seat. You call to the three-year-old moping at the breakfast table, 'If you turn off that cartoon right now and get in the car I'll give you a popsicle for the ride - but you have to put your shoes on first!'

And presto - by the time you have the diaper bag and your purse in hand, he's playing peek-a-boo from his car seat and you just have to buckle him in, lock up the house, and run back in real quick for the popsicle that you forgot to dig out from under the frost-bitten casserole you need to remember to cook sometime this week. As you go back out the door you whistle for the dog so he can get to work before the ants find the cereal. Best of all, you'll still have plenty of time to get 'one last hug' three or four times before drop-off is complete.

Welcome to the Bad Mommy Club.

The thing is, we all do it. We don't all let them watch cartoons in the morning, or bribe them with junk food, or take the very easy way out when it comes to housekeeping. But we all do it once in a while. When things aren't going well, when we need a break, when we think our kids are still darn cute but are obviously hatched from alien eggs so anything we do to them won't really warp them because they were destined to grow up a little strange anyway.

And even though we do it, we feel guilty. We shouldn't, really. Instead we should be proud that they're growing up so darn cute, and have such determined little personalities. We should acknowledge that they're going to learn the hard way sometime, and truthfully, isn't it safer for them to learn it at home?

And there are always the facts. No matter how attentive and careful you are, your baby will suffer some dreadful injury - he'll burn his hand or thwonk his head and get a goose egg over his eye or fall off his bike in your driveway and break his arm. No matter how patient and stimulating you are, your kid will eventually grow bored of you and sass off or start running through the house swinging a paper towel tube like a bat breaking some heirloom you thought you'd done a good job of keeping. (Hint: no matter what you do, you will never totally childproof your house. I'm not advising you to just give up, I'm only letting you know that they will find unforeseeable dangers, and it's okay as long as you take care of them and stop it from happening again.) And no matter how deeply and passionately you love your offspring, they will, at times, drive you mad.

Hence, the Bad Mommy Club (BMC). At the BMC, we know that it happens. I know that I would have been the first to tell you: don't go off to take a shower while the baby's in his carrier in the other room with his big brother. Something bad will happen. But I did it, and something bad happened ('I was just pretending to pick him up!') Fortunately I was the only one who was permanently damaged. (My ego eternally bruised, which is what happens when you're running soapy, naked and wet through the house, slip on the tile floor and land the weight of your post-partum body on your elbow.)

And then, of course, there's the stuff we have to filter out from the rest of the world:

• Breastfeed. Don't breastfeed. Don't breastfeed for more than a few months.

• We never used car seats when our kids were little, and not one of them died in a high-speed head-on collision. If you turn your infant's seat forward before a year you shouldn't have had kids in the first place.

• You'll spoil him by holding him so often. Wear your infant in a sling at all times. Why on earth is that child so clingy?

• She'll have a terrible self-image if she doesn't join softball when she's five. Organized sports are the new parents' way of getting out of raising their kids themselves.

• That child needs a good swat. Only a psychopath would ever hit their own offspring.

• The happiest babies sleep with their parents. If your child is in your bed, you're perverse and you'll probably smother her with your blankets, and then how will you feel?

At the BMC we've heard (and, frankly, ignored) them all.

The BMC was created as a safe haven from all of this. A place where we can admit to the things that make us feel like bad mommies, or vent about the things that others tell us make us bad mommies. We know we're not bad. We know we'd do anything for our kids. We know that occasionally we have to admit how frustrated or bored or furious our kids make us, because kids are people, too, and flawed like the rest of us. (Mine, however, are perfect, and don't you dare to suggest otherwise.)

So come on in, pull up a chair, and tell us all of the stupid, embarrassing, infuriating lengths you've gone to thanks to your kids. We know. We've done it, too. And while the rest of the world will tell you how many ways in which you're screwing up this, the most important job you'll ever have, all we can say is, "Hey, don't worry about it. Listen to what I did."