roid rage

“If I only had three words of advice, they would be, ‘tell the truth.’ If got three more words, I’d add, ‘all the time.’”  -Randy Pausch

In the category of “Not Exactly News,” Mark McGwire admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs during his Major League Baseball career, including in 1998 when he broke Roger Maris’ single season home run record. The timing of the announcement is apparently designed so that it will have all blown over before Spring Training gets underway and McGwire goes to work as batting coach for the St Louis Cardinals. He is being lauded for coming clean, despite lying to everyone for years. And in “everyone” you can include his wife, his kids, his parents, his manager, his teammates. Everyone.

I’ll grant that late is better than never but how many more times is this scene going to be repeated? How many times am I going to have to explain this crap to my son Oliver, who is four years old and idolizes baseball players? I suppose I’m fortunate that my son was born after McGwire retired and he has probably never heard the name, but he knows Manny Ramirez and used to say he was “his best guy.” Then came the day I had to explain that Manny broke the rules and had to have a very long “sit down,” just like when he breaks the rules at school. A week later, when he had more questions, I had to explain how Manny took medicine that wasn’t good for his body. The questions didn’t stop for more about a month. It was easily my greatest challenge as a parent, and we’ve already been through the death of a beloved family pet.

The whole thing makes me angry. As a mom I want to insulate my kids from the world and for them to think the best of everyone, but it will not be long before my son is able to read all this for himself in the newspaper or some other source.

So help me out. What do you tell your kids when their sports heroes turn out to be liars and cheats? (I’ll leave the adulterers for another day.)