SOS is 10 years-old.  Today, he discovered that YouTube isn’t just for videos about locomotives.  He was visiting my office from 2:45pm to 4:15pm while POB needed to be at a meeting.  It seems that between 4:15pm and 6:45pm, he discovered some erotica (and I am being generous here).

How did POB know?  It was eerily quiet in his room.  Computers are not allowed in his room.  Ahhhh, iTouch with wifi.  Smart little whippersnapper.  (Previously, if we were only in ear-shot (as opposed to eyes riveted on the monitor, he would announce if he found “inappropriate” videos and voluntarily turn them off.)

SOS was very embarrassed at the discovery and immediately spilled his guts and broke all confidences (I will miss this reflexive truthfulness as he becomes a conniving teen).

“Don’t be embarrassed, bud.  Women in swimsuits (and without) can be beautiful.  But not every video or picture is about beauty or love.  So you can’t have access to everything.  It is hard to explain where the line is between what is ok and what isn’t.  So, we have to decide that line.”

SOS nodded silently, still not meeting my eyes (which is a problem for him anyway).

He was particularly pleasant at dinner as if trying to make up for having ogled some naked women.  There was a part of me that was weighing the pros and cons of the situation because it was really so nice not having him critique his food and start negotiating about what he didn’t have to eat and still get dessert.

Still, that “some day when SOS is older” is today. Today, SOS is old enough that his not-so-nascent sexual awareness requires that we even more actively monitor his computer time.

I put on all the parental controls I could find on Google, Yahoo and YouTube.  And re-instated browsing history retrievals. My blog is probably off-limits.  The funny thing is that the head of some ultra-conservative movement and I probably have the same filters on our household computers.  How’s that for ironic.

We are now in lock down.  SOS now wears an orange prisoner jumpsuit and cannot be left alone.  He is wifi’ed and dangerous.

Nah, not really.  But POB and I have cross-checked our seat belts and made sure our life insurance is paid up because one of us might not survive this roller coaster ride through the next eight or so years.