Bless me, Parenting Police, for I have sinned.

It has been forever since my last confession. Well, technically, this is my first confession. Here goes . . . Since I became a parent, I have committed the following indiscretions:

• I don’t let my kids win at board games. I have a few reasons for this. Number 1, I am highly competitive. I get itchy when I think someone is going to beat me. Number 2, Chutes & Ladders, Candyland and the like bore me. To tears. The only enjoyment I get out of the hours that I’ve been required to hop from blue square to double orange square or sliding down those stupid chutes (why do I always land on the big slide at the end?!?!) is playing to win. I know, oh powerful and judgmental Parenting Police, that I am irreparably harming my children’s self-esteem and that this flies in the face of t-ball games where no one keeps score and classes where no one gets a real grade, but I think (and call me crazy if you want) kids need to learn how to lose and how to be a good sport (it’s easy to be a good sport when you win, but I know adults who can’t keep it together when they get beaten at the bowl-o-rama on a Saturday night). I do draw the line at trash-talking. It’s kind of hard to make “Yo mama” jokes, when I am in fact, their mama.

• I don’t explain myself to my kids. I’m the grown-up. They’re the kids. This is not a democracy. It’s a dictatorship. A benevolent dictatorship, to be sure, but a dictatorship nonetheless. If I decree that there shall be a green vegetable at each meal, baths every night and clean fingernails in my kingdom, then it shall be so. And if I decide, in my infinite wisdom, that I am allowed to eat Oreo cookies for breakfast while my minions are forced to eat a healthy breakfast of Cheerios, yogurt and a banana then (in the immortal words of Yul Brynner in “The Ten Commandments”) so let it be written, so let it be done. I’m the boss. I don’t have to explain myself.

• I ignore them. I mean, not when they legitimately need something, like if they’re bleeding or if there’s a bone sticking out of their leg. But when they whine, I simply refuse to listen. They could be explaining the solution to the NFL lockout or reciting the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, but if they do it in Whinese, then I will not listen. I don’t care what they have to say if they can’t say it in a normal tone of voice. Nothing grates on my nerves like the whining, and I will be a monkey’s uncle (or aunt, as the case may be) if I am going to reward whining by paying attention to it.

Now it’s your turn. Fess up. What sins must you confess to the Parenting Police?