My son Jonah is a seven-year-old boy filled with curiosity, goodness, and increasing interest in electronics. He will sit for hours watching videos of people unboxing devices, reviewing mice, and assembling computers-tec products that, really, I do not understand. I did not pay much attention to it. It looked harmless, even good.

There was this one YouTube channel he absolutely loved—a guy who reviewed keyboards. Mechanical, membrane, gaming, wireless—you name it. He had this quirky personality, goofy voice, flashy cartoon transitions, and a dramatic outro at the end of every video. It was dorky in a good way. Jonah adored him.

Then I went to pick Jonah up from school one day, and his teacher asked to speak with me privately.

"Jonah used a word today," she said to me warily. "One that upset us."

I braced myself for "stupid" or "shut up." But no—he'd used the R-word to insult another child.

Amanda and I sat him down that evening. She asked him where he'd heard it.

Jonah shrugged. "The keyboard man used it. About a stupid keyboard."

I froze. Amanda didn't. She turned to me in a flash—roughly.

"You said this man was fine. You said it was fine."

I attempted to explain myself: "I didn't know. I thought it was PG." But it didn't work. To her, this was the newest in a string of me not being serious about things—particularly things that were important to her.

And perhaps she was right.

Not that I had been willfully careless, but that I'd set aside too many concerns. I dismissed off-color jokes. Let Jonah stay up late to watch videos. Made fun of Amanda's fears as overblown.

It wasn't the keyboard guy who destroyed our marriage.

But it was a crack—a small thing that widened over time. Amanda moved out three months later. We co-parent now. She's the rule-setter. I'm still earning back her trust, one Jonah visit at a time.

So, now I critique every video Jonah watches. Because all it takes is a casual remark—one quip, one word—and it takes root. Sometimes for so long that it does more than offend. Sometimes for so long that it smashes something that's already broke.

Also, tell me if the youtube channel he was watching is bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjS4Yrmif6Q