OK, Kate Gosselin’s a famewhore, but is telling your kid “you splash me and you’re dead meat,” really what’s going to earn her the Bad Mother of the Year Award?

Is this really news? Because guess what’s in US Weekly this week? On the cover?

Yeah, yeah, it was gossip about the Gosselins for what is this, the fifth week in a row? I know, I was totally shocked too.

But now that they’ve run out of catty relatives, they’ve turned to random folks on the street who might have or might not have overheard SeptoMom (like that? trying it out for size) being a big ol’ meanie pants to her kids. The worst they could come up with:

“When Kate sat on the edge of the pool, she told one of [the twins], ‘If you splash me, you’re dead meat,’” adds [nosy fellow vacationer hungry for her fifteen seconds Ana Michele] Sweeney. “She was not joking at all.”

To which the bullied tot replied, “Mommy, you’re mean.”

Oh, my Gawd, Becky, did you hear what she said? As my colleague Brett Singer pointed out, it’s not like she said “”if you splash me, I’ll put your life on television for millions to comment on.” Oh, wait . . .

I’m not some Kate lover here (although I tend to agree with my colleague Amy - I’m not a fan of the undercurrent of anti-feminism in all this “blame Kate, she’s such a shrew” over “blame the couple, marriages take two people to fall apart”), but come on people. It’s “dead meat,” not “I’m going to strangle you and leave your body for the vultures.”

Not every silly expression is a sign of some underlying anger issues ready to boil over. Nor are they particularly damaging to kid’s psyches. You know, the same kids who call each other “poopyhead.”

If this is the sign of truly bad parenting, we’re all going to mommy (and daddy) jail. Like the mom in the grocery store who is on her last frayed nerve who tells her kids, “no, we are not getting dino nuggets, and if you don’t stop sticking your lower lip out, I’m going to nail it to the cart!”

Or the mom who tells their child that they smell like a dead wildebeest, so they have to get in the bath.

My parents told us they were going to kill us in a joking manner often over the years, and I’m still alive and kicking. And I don’t harbor any particular fears of being slain in the night. Sometimes, words are just words.

What is the “worst” thing you’ve ever said to your kids?

Image: Celebuzz

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