So you want a new mom?

Continuing its trek through absurdity, the China Daily reports that a teenage girl in Dalian has been paying a classmate's aunt to pose as her mother at school meetings. Why? Because her mom lacked fashion sense.

Although Pingping attends school regularly, Wang never attended any of the parents' meetings because her daughter never told her about them. It was only when Wang called the school did she realize she had missed many meetings. Bewildered, Wang asked her daughter about what was going on, but Pingping's answer astonished her. "You made me lose face," she replied. "I have been asking a classmate's aunt to take part in it for me, 50 yuan (US$6.4) each time."

Apparently being embarrassed by your parents when you're a teenager is universal. The story continues with a long, hilarious account of the ongoing mother-daughter troubles between Wang and Pingping, and attempts to place the "conflict" in some sort of social context:

The generation gap in China has become so dramatic that parents who fail to catch up with the rest of the society could be abandoned by their children.

That statement left me as bewildered as the mom with no fashion sense. Note to Chinese moms and dads: You better wake up and smell the Calvin Klein, otherwise you won't have an offspring to take care of you in your retirement years!