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I used to be a Mom with benefits, but now that my daughters are almost grown teenagers, life at Pittman Palace is anything but picture perfect. And that's just the way I like it.

Hungry? Learn how to cook. It's an invaluable skill that will serve you for the rest of your eating life.

Need a ride? You're perfectly capable of walking. Call a taxi. Or better yet, walk.

You want what? Wouldn't we all! That's what jobs are for. Go get one.

When my kids then call me the Meanest Mom in the World, I take it as a compliment. It means I'm doing my job. The goal is to raise them to be able to find their own ways out of a paper bag. In other words, if you give a teenager a fish, she will eat for a day. If you teach a teenager to fish, she eats for a lifetime. Enlighten her further, and she owns a chain of seafood restaurants!

Admittedly, it's hard not to cater to them, especially with the college-is-just-around-the-corner clock ticking away in my heart. I'd actually love nothing more than to do their laundry, color coordinate it, fold it neatly and place it in lavender-scented drawers; give up my own hot (ha!) social life in order to chauffeur them all over town; fill their wallets with as much money as they wanted to spend on new clothes and the latest gadgets; and sit them down to home-cooked meals every night.

I sometimes get soft and surrender to the Tough Love, DIY Mom by offering up my services, but it usually only frightens them when I'm nice.

"Are you okay Mom?" Susannah will say, backing slowly away from me as I try to hand her a glass of milk and her favorite chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven when she comes in the door from school. "Did you poison them or something? What's wrong? Why are you being so nice to us?"

"What are you talking about?" I'll ask incredulously, wiping my hands on the yellow tea cup adorned apron I reserve for these special moments.

She'll then look at her sister, pleading for back-up support.

"Mom's just in one of her 'I'm going to try to be a Mom' moods today, Susannah," she'll say. "Don't worry. You can have a cookie. She'll snap out of it soon."

But the joke was on Nell when I didn't. In fact, Mrs. Nice Mom camped out in our house for an entire week. It started with the batch of cookies and continued when I made a secret pact with Nell to actually write her English paper comparing Glengarry Glen Ross to Death of a Salesman. There's a first time for everything, and this was it.

What's one paper I reasoned, especially when I happen to know several parents who actually do their high schooler's homework for them on a regular basis. Yup! One mom in particular will actually complain to me about how hard it is to complete the assignments on time with everything else on her plate.

"I was up until one o'clock in the morning writing her English paper," she'll say to me. "And then I had to study for the trig test so I could go over it with her before the midterm!"

Another family - and I know this for a fact - went as far as to hire a $150-an-hour SAT tutor for their daughter - STARTING IN KINDERGARTEN! She's now a senior in high school and has a near-perfect score whereas my daughter took the test cold. She did well, but I was secretly seething and then outwardly complaining to her guidance counselor about the unfairness of it all.

I call it Revenge of the Anti-Mom! If they're going to un-level the playing field, then so would I! When Nell said she was all for it, we bonded like thieves.

"How's it going Mom?" she'd ask, sitting down with me at the kitchen table, asking if I'd like a cup of tea.

"Piece of cake!" I said, giving her a high five. "I can whip this off in no time. Relax. I've got your back, babe."

A few days and two plays later, I emailed her the completed essay.

That's when she came downstairs.

"Mom, we gotta talk," she said.

"Why? What?" I asked.

"I would never turn that in," she said."I can't do it."

Beaming with pride at my most precious, principled and perfect daughter, I handed her a piece of chocolate I pretended was just for her whereas I really found it under the driver's seat after Trick or Treating with a carload of her sister's friends.

"I'm so proud of you, honey," I said, watching her peel at the wrapper. "What a girl."

"Mom, I hate to tell you this, but I would've been tempted to use it if it were any good. You really need some help if you're going to get through high school."

- Laura Fahrenthold

Laura Fahrenthold is a former New York Daily News crime reporter about to publish her first book about spreading her husband's ashes on cross-country RV trips with her eyeball-rolling teenage daughters and the pink steering wheel acting as her spiritual guide.