Changing gears from hockey drama for the moment... I was in the car on Monday listening to ESPN radio. Erik Kuselias was on, and said something I've heard before, but considering he's a law school grad, a Ph.D. candidate, and a member of Mensa, I thought it was somewhat remarkable. I paraphrase:

So Barry Bonds is going to be starting the All-Star game in San Francisco, and he'll get a huge response from the crowd, standing ovations... What am I supposed to tell my 11-year-old son? What happened to 'cheaters never prosper'?

Though I qualify x3, I'm a pretty mediocre parent, and am loathe to tell anyone else how to do it. However, I don't exactly see this issue as one of the toughies, so I have some suggestions that EK is free to take or leave.

For starters, I believe it's unwise to teach your kids things that are untrue. So while it's a good idea to try to teach your kids to behave with honour -- and what honour means -- telling them "cheaters never prosper" is not only false but probably counterproductive. Cheaters do prosper sometimes -- that's why people cheat. It seems to me that if your kid believes that you shouldn't cheat because either (A) you'll get caught or (B) most people will despise you, then as soon as they figure out a way around those consequences (in their short-range view of things), the coast is clear!

Fortunately, you can use Barry Bonds to teach your kids at least 3 object lessons, all of which are relevant and important regardless of whether you believe Bonds is a martyr or Satan in a leather recliner.

Due process matters. Often times the rules and technicalities of the legal system mean that someone who did something wrong gets away with it, but the opposite would be worse. Would you like to get into serious trouble at school without getting to tell your side of the story? Or if you didn't know exactly what you were being accused of, or by who? Or if the principal had already decided you did it before you ever got to talk to her? Me neither. If you were wrongfully accused of something, how would you like to be treated? Then those have to be the rules for everybody.

Agreements matter. As you grow up, you're going to find yourself party to all sorts of agreements, formal and informal. And sometimes, the other party to your agreement will do something that seems terribly unfair or wrong, but that wasn't specifically against the agreement you made. This is life. When it happens, take it as a lesson learned, and use it to make better agreements next time -- or refuse to enter into an agreement where the behaviour you don't like isn't prohibited. Would you like if someone you had an agreement with was able to change it by themselves? No? Then that should be the rules for everybody.

Incentives matter. This is an important one. Barry Bonds looked at how he could benefit from performance-enhancing drugs, and decided that the enhanced performance he would gain and the (say) $50 million extra dollars he might earn was worth the risk of getting caught and being disgraced, banned from the game, or even jailed. What things are important to you? What kind of rewards might induce you to break the law, or worse, do something that you know is wrong? When this type of choice is presented to you (and it will be), do you understand your own values so that you can make a decision you won't regret later?

As a bonus 4th item, depending on your kid's age, you might want to use this opportunity to discuss drugs in general. As per my preamble, I don't think Drugs Are Bad/no qualifiers is something I want to teach my kids, because I don't like to teach them untrue things -- especially when they will find out soon enough that said thing is untrue, and my credibility as a father will suffer.

The same drug is used by the bodybuilder trying to get an edge, and the person wasting away with AIDS; the same drug is used by the teenager going for some Friday night fun and the cancer patient trying to maintain an appetite for the food they need to stay healthy; the same drug is used by the man who has thrown away his family and job and the man who is trying to remain functional while dealing with chronic excruciating back pain. What do you think makes the difference between OK and Not OK? Is it whether it was recommended by a doctor? Where it was purchased? What the law says about it? What kind of effect it has on the rest of your life, your job, your family?

Would you like to substitute your judgement on this matter for that of others? Would you like it if theirs was substituted for yours?