I reached over — too late –to turn down the volume on the car radio.
“Tiger Woods said Tuesday he will return to golf next month at the Masters,” said the ESPN radio announcer.
“Daddy?” came a small, 8-year-old voice from the back seat.
“What, Son?” I said, rubbing my temple.
“What are they talking about, Daddy?”
OK, why is parenting always like this, I thought to myself. No time to think. Given a 30-second head start I might have outrun this bullet.
“Well, Son, Tiger Woods got into trouble, see. And now he isn’t … so much … in trouble. Well, actually he is still in trouble; but he’s really sorry, and he’s going to play golf anyway. OK?”
“What?” my son repeated.
Precisely.
Gathering myself, I backed up and started again.
“It’s like this, Son. Tiger Woods is married, just like Mommy and Daddy are married. But he decided he wanted to have lots of girlfriends.
“That was like telling a lie to his wife and children, wasn’t it? It wasn’t a very nice thing to do, and now lots of people are disappointed in him.
“When Mommies and Daddies get married, they make a promise that they won’t have any other girlfriends or boyfriends. If they break that promise, it’s bad. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “Daddy, is that what getting divorced means?”
“Well, sometimes it causes people to get divorced,” I said. “Lots of people thought Tiger Woods was a really good guy, you know. Now, they are sad about the things he did.”
Thirty seconds passed in silence.
“What do you think about all this?” I asked timidly.
“I don’t know,” he said, almost in a whisper.
Like most 8-year-old boys in America, my son is a casual Tiger Woods fan. Although not yet a golfer, he has junior Tiger Woods golf clubs that he takes to the driving range occasionally.
He has enough attention span to watch the final two holes of a tournament on Sunday afternoon. Mostly, though, he’s just trying to figure out life through the prism of sports.
“How did Tiger Woods’ wife find out about his girlfriends?” my son asked.
Interesting question, I thought.
“Well, he had some messages from them on his cell phone,” I said.
“How did his wife see them?” he asked.
“Well, I guess she just looked at his cell phone,” I said. “So, do you think he should get a second chance?”
“I think people should get a second chance,” he said. “But when you say you’re sorry, you have to mean it.”
OK, he seems to have processed this pretty well, I thought.
The next morning I walked into the TV room while my son was eating his Cheerios and watching “SportsCenter” on ESPN.
“Daddy,” he said, “did you know Ben Roethlisberger might not play for the Steelers this year? What did he do?”
Yech.