Am I the meanest Mom in the world?

Sometimes I think I must be the meanest mom. I mean okay I did get my 11 year old a cell phone. I swore I would never do that until she could pay for it herself. After all I did just fine without a cell phone. But now that she's in middle school I started thinking pay phones were easily accessible when I was her age. So if there's a problem she'd have a hard time calling me. So I broke down and got her a phone. It's a free phone and no extra money on our plan and she can only call our cell phones or my parents because that wouldn't use any of our minutes. So the phone has not really been used.

But yesterday Kaitlyn got off the bus with papers from her backpack in her hand and her backpack open and in her other hand. I asked her if she did her homework on the bus. She said she did. I told her homework is to be done at home not on the bus. She said okay and I even reminded her again this morning that homework is called homework not buswork for a reason. So I thought we were good.

She got off the bus with her backpack closed today and it appeared she hadn't done her work on the bus. Then I discovered her papers were all just thrown in her backpack and not in her folder so everything was wrinkled. She says she didn't have time. I thought she only had one math sheet for homework which she had gone through pretty quickly. I had to make her correct a few things and then all of a sudden she comes out with this fill in the blank paper that she found that she had for homework. Now reading is tough for her and these fill in the blank sheets tend to cause much anxiety for her. So as I was going through it I was pretty amazed as how easily she managed to do this particular homework. So at first I thought Natalie helped her with it. She did not. So I asked Kaitlyn about it and how she managed to do it so quickly. She claimed it was easy. I kept pushing though and the story changed to she started it on the bus, but she only did one problem when she remembered what I said, but I could tell she wasn't telling the truth. So I pushed more and it changed to she did a few and then it was the whole thing and a couple on the math paper. So then I questioned her about getting help with it because I know she couldn't have done this on her own. She said her friends only helped her with a few. I do not believe her though. But apparently everyone does their homework on the bus and she doesn't want to be the only one that doesn't. Sorry, I don't think I'm wrong in thinking that homework should be done at home. Not on the bus.

So anyways, mean mom that I am I emailed her teacher. I have requested another worksheet like the one she did on the bus for her for homework tomorrow as punishment. If she does her homework on the bus again tomorrow then she is not going to be able to participate in Bingo at school Friday night or have her ice cream. Yes, maybe I am a mean mom, but I do not want her taking shortcuts in life. Hopefully her teacher is receptive to my punishment of her and supplies the extra homework.