Dina Lohan, the slinky 45-year-old mother and manager of troubled actress Lindsay Lohan, doesn't exactly embody responsible parenting. But that didn't stop the Long Island-based Mingling Mom organization from bestowing upon Dina its first-ever "Top Mom" award at the Carlyle on the Green club in Bethpage, New York, last night.

She exited her chauffeured car and worked the red carpet in a mid-thigh-length frock, leading onlookers to momentarily forget that it's her daughter who's the movie star. (In a classier move, she brought as a date her own 82-year-old mom, a delightful Chardonnay-drinking former off-Broadway actress named Ann Sullivan. Ann totally loved Lindsay in Parent Trap but skipped I Know Who Killed Me. Like America!) There was a certain, almost motherly, warmth in Dina's voice when she talked to Radar about her daughters. "I was just watching Lindsay record a track for her third album a few days ago with Snoop Dogg," she told us at her banquet table as dozens of other mother-daughter combos gathered around to take her photo. "Lindsay is a wonderful and loving and caring girl who is completely misunderstood. People forget that she's only 21. I mean what were you like when you were 21?"

How Lohan came under consideration for the award remains unclear. For starters, her daughter is currently the unwitting poster child for a national anti-drunk driving ad campaign. In the past year, young Lindsay has also been arrested on cocaine charges, been in and out of rehab three times, and shown a frightening inability to exercise discretion when choosing a suitable sexual partner. A Mingling Moms spokesperson told OK! that the sole criteria for winning was being a Long Island native and the mother of someone famous. President Erica Logiudice, however, told us that Dina actually placed first in an online "Best Mom" poll the group had held last month. (No evidence of the poll actually exists on the website.) She laughed at our suggestion that Lohan was tapped to ensure media coverage—mission accomplished!—as well as at our intimation that she might not have been as deserving as some of the other moms being honored.

"Dina just does things her own way, and we don't stand in judgment," the arbiter of the "Top Mom" designation told us. "When it comes down to it, Lindsay is over 18. She's a big girl. You can't hold her mom responsible for everything."

You can, however, hold her responsible for certain comments she's made in the past, like when she told Harper's Bazaar that she considers herself more like a "sister" to Lindsay and loves going club-hopping in her Jimmy Choo boots. And in Vanity Fair's "Mom's Gone Wild" story the writer noted that Dina Lohan "does not appear to have a close personal relationship with reality." To that point, Dina told us that when Lindsay isn't working, "she should be left alone. The constant media crush can be too much. And in the end it's not my place to tell her she's only allowed to go out and drive with a driver or whatever." But it's Lindsay's nocturnal behavior that has actually affected her "work"—it's not as if she's sitting at home doing the Sunday crossword puzzle in her off hours. Also, maybe it wouldn't be so terrible if someone did insist that she goes out with a driver for once? "I mean she's obviously made mistakes," Lohan explained. "I just tell her she should stay true to herself and try to make up for what she did."

Staying true to one's self, we also learned over dinner, is apparently an important life dictum for Dina; it's what she says compelled her to go ahead with Living Lohan, the upcoming E! reality show she is producing. Lindsay has been adamant about not appearing in the show, though Dina doesn't seem to mind. "I'm just trying to set the record straight about this family and give people an honest look into our lives," she says. "Reality (TV) is reality, but realism is my life."

We didn't quite follow. "This isn't going to be like The Hills," she elaborated. She draped her arm around our shoulder. Dina Lohan is clearly a seasoned operator. "It's going to be real. It's going to showcase how I do what I do. It'll really show who we are in a way that's very honest."

The matriarch Lohan says the show will focus on the efforts of her other daughter, 14-year-old Ali, to get her singing career off the ground. "To be honest, I didn't even want to appear on camera at first, but E! wanted me on. Three years ago I would have said, 'No way am I doing a reality show.'" She pauses to let the gravity of that statement sink in. "But it's just where entertainment is headed. I mean, even J. Lo has one these days."

J. Lo does, but she's also not 14. We asked Dina if she was worried about how Ali might come off on the show, given the brouhaha surrounding similarly aged Miley Ray Cyrus. Would she let her do a similar spread for Vanity Fair? She avoided the question. "The media is very manipulative," she said with a smile. "Miley will be fine."

Related: "Days later, Lohan's mother, Dina, told Harper's Bazaar that "Diana will happen again," and hinted darkly that her daughter might be next."