When one brother dares the other to touch the electric fence, and the fun parent wants to prove he can do it, and the responsible parent offers to document the whole experiment – then it is time for Confessions of a Bad Parent.

This may shock you, but I am not always the perfect parent I pretend to be on Facebook.

Like that time in Tonga when we blatantly left our children at the airport to selfishly take the last two available seats. We had already been marooned on the island for 3 days due to rain, missing our fully pre-paid boat charter waiting for us on a neighboring island. We left the boys with their grandparents, with the understanding they could catch a later flight. However, they were delayed yet another day due to the monsoon. Meanwhile on the boat, Jens and I enjoyed a romantic night alone on a beautiful boat in paradise. We felt only a little guilty.

Or the time in Australia, when we celebrated our 14-year anniversary at a fancy restaurant with cloth napkins. We didn’t want the rug rats to spoil our date, so we left them in the RV in the parking lot. We plied them with frozen pizza and the most kid friendly DVD we could find from the camp library: X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That’s not scary – watching alone, at night, in dark parking lot, in a foreign country, right?

Or the time in China, when Jens and I jumped aboard a crowded subway just as the doors were closing, leaving our bewildered children on the subterranean platform. Realizing our terrible error, I threw my arm between the closing doors and screamed in hopes the train conductor would reunite me with my children.

There may have also been a few little lies along the way. Like the time when Jack lost a tooth at a temple, and not wanting to carry the bloody incisor in my pocket, I told him the local custom was to make a wish and throw it in the reflection pool.

Luckily no one knows us here. I promise to be a better mother back home.