I recently discovered the hard way that I can no longer leave my 9-year-old alone with the internet. This may seem obvious to most people, but he has always been so good at staying on Study Island or SOL Pass and doing actual schoolwork. Until the day I came home from soccer practice and Tommy met me at the door.

“Something happened with the computer. I couldn’t figure out how to get it back on.” Now, something is always going wrong with the computer, so that was not suspicious. Until I opened the computer and found not just Study Island open, but also a graphic pornography site. Uh oh. Was my 9-year-old actually interested in pornography? How did he know it was on the internet? (Of course it’s obvious to the rest of us, but you don’t see much on Webkinz, his main area of internet expertise.) But then I checked out the name: boob.com.

Tommy was breastfed, unabashedly stared at his and his friends’ younger siblings while they nursed, and at 5, sighed deeply and told me, “Mommy, I love your boobies.” So I knew he was never going to be a leg man. But this was too much.

“Tommy, I need to talk to you about what I found on the computer.”

“Huh? What?”

“How did you find that web site?”

“I clicked on something on Study Island and that popped up.”

“Uh huh. Try again.”

“I was just typing a ‘B’ and that popped up.”

“Tommy.”

“Okay! (dejected sigh) I went to the place where you search for things and I typed in boob.” (He left out the part about not knowing how to close the site or reopen the computer once he slammed it shut. I managed not to laugh.) So I gave him the standard talk about what is appropriate and what is not, to come to me with questions, etc. The unfunny part of the story is that the site was VERY graphic, and he can’t unsee those things. After all, he just wanted to see a boob.

Guess he’ll just have to start stealing my Victoria’s Secret catalogs like his friends.