What do I do when my kids ask me questions I don’t know the answer to? I turn to The Almighty Google.

Need to know the square root of 354? Google can answer that in .59 seconds.

Someone has a dire need to know when bread was invented? The Big G can steer you to the answer toot suite.

Crave some quick entertainment? Google works wonders. (Seriously, do this search. You’re welcome.)

 

But there are some searches that don’t end so well. Some that don’t produce accurate results. Some that could have catastrophic outcomes if seen by a three year-old.

 

A few years ago, before SEO and page rankings and the internet police, I was trying to find a video to show my young son. He has sitting on my lap as we surfed the web, basking in the glow of my laptop and enjoying the information highway.

 

We were trying to learn the difference between beavers and otters. We saw a cute video of how otters eat, swimming on their backs and cracking open their food with a rock clutched in their adorable little paws.

 

My son asked, “Do beavers eat that way, too?”

 

Hell if I know, kid. But I have my resources. Google will know the answer!

 

So we performed a comparative search.

 

Yes, we looked up Beaver Eating.
And, let’s just say, the search results were not as clean as they are today.

 

Splattered all over the first page of our search was eating of another kind. That’s right. If your mind is in the gutter, then it’s at the right restaurant. On the menu? What “beaver” is a euphemism for.

 

Horrified by the graphic thumbnails on the screen, I panicked. My fingers flew over the keyboard trying to escape the visual horror of that Google return. To something more appropriate. To something I didn’t have to explain. To something that wouldn’t require a therapy visit later.

 

And then I closed my laptop and moved us over to something more predictable, like the banality of Thomas the Train.

 

I considered this a lesson learned. Be wary of the Google searches I perform in front of my kids.

 

Because you never know when The Almighty Google might fail you.

 

Has a Google search ever steered you wrong in front of young and innocent eyes? I’d love to hear about it!

Be sure to continue the conversation by FOLLOWING ME on and

 

Days after my son was born, I received a package on my porch from my father.  It was a gift for my first born child.

A black, kid-sized Rawlings baseball glove.  The Players Series.  “Signed” by Alex Rodriguez.

A-Rod had just signed to the Yankees a couple of years earlier, which was pretty big news when we were living in New York City.  My father, a lifelong baseball fan, hoped to bestow a gift to my son that he would be proud to use as he got older.  Maybe even play catch together with that glove someday.

While I would have been more enamored with a Derek Jeter version, A-Rod seemed like a great choice.  My dad recognized a player who had power.  Who had longevity.  An All-Star.  An MVP.  Great qualities that a small baseball fan might look up to as a role model.

Say what you will about Rodriguez’s salary (and I agree, it’s cray-cray), he was exciting to watch for a while.  Being the youngest player ever to hit 500 home runs and 600 home runs are pretty impressive stats.  Ladies love the long ball, and I was no exception.  Yankee Stadium after an A-Rod home run was nothing short of ear splitting.

And yet, all that has been contaminated by his poor choices.

My son received this glove before A-Rod tarnished his reputation with performance-enhancing drug admission.  Before his stats deserved as asterisk.  All my son knew about Alex Rodriguez was that he was a good baseball player with a cool nickname.

He wore that glove to his first t-ball practice a few years ago with pride.  And why shouldn’t he have felt that way?  He was using a future Hall Of Famer glove, hoping it would give him some luck in actually catching a ball that day.

Collecting baseball cards has been a habit of my son’s for the past year, and he has his favorites separated in to their own pile.  Troy Tulowitzki. Carlos Gonzalez.  Buster Posey.  Robinson Cano.  Mariano Rivera.

And Alex Rodriguez.

Monday my son found out that Alex Rodriguez was suspended for 211 games for using steroids.  While it’s not the first time I’ve ever associated A-Rod with drugs, it was the first time I had to have a drug discussion surrounding sports with my kid.  Lance Armstrong went under his radar, but this one hit way too close to home.  Pun intended.

In the days after the suspension, my son has been asking for a new baseball glove.  He knows the name stamped on his glove is tainted in fraud.  That the name doesn’t mean the same as it used to.  He doesn’t want to be associated with Alex Rodriguez, even by leather goods.

Rather than shunning a player and judging, we’ve started talking about what the suspension means.  What lesson we can learn from Alex Rodriguez.

What A-Rod taught my son was that getting accolades by way of cheating isn’t worth it.  That achieving goals and breaking records with good old fashioned Hard Work is difficult but extremely rewarding.  That respect is more important than money.  Lose that, and you’re toast.

He’s taken this to heart and come away with the knowledge that he’d much rather be a good player with honesty than an phenomenal player by cheating.

We’ll go shopping soon for a new glove.  Maybe one with a player’s name on it.  Or plain.   Will my son be a Major League player one day?  Probably not.

But if he does?  I’d hope some kid would be honored to have my son’s name on their glove.