Beyond Brittanica.

Ya gotta adore the internet! (I love a good understatement, don't you?) The reasons are, without doubt, incalculable. And as a parenting tool - it is a resource beyond compare .

And I'm not referring here to the countless sites devoted to advice, support, and creative ideas for effective discipline, (although I've heard rumours those places can be rather informative), but rather the aspect of how it has freed modern parents from age old cliches like:

"You'll just have to take my word for it",
"Go ask your mother," or
"Look it up in the encyclopedia."

(Not that the last of these was ever heard in my childhood home - we never owned a set - but I can attest to the others... the first in particular. Used a lot that one was...)

No, rather than resorting to the pulling of rank, or admissions of ignorance - parents of the new millennia can say:

"Hang on a sec... I'll show you!"

Recently, the Ger-Man was trying to dress the Caspi-Man, who was, on that day, refusing to wear anything BUT his pint sized Socceroos jersey. (And I must tell you, yellow is soooo not his colour. A shame really - as the Ger-Man proclaimed quite early on that if he excels at fussball he'd be playing for Australia, and if swimming was his sport he'd be doing it for Deutschland. I was initially confused by this - until he clarified his position with "more chance of getting in the national team". Just wonder who he'll be representing then if he excels at brick laying?)

The jersey happened to be soaking in the laundry - covered in colourful evidence of a previous day's eating, drinking, playing, and perhaps even accident of a "it's no big deal, it can happen to anyone," (but why the hell is it happening to you this often?) nature.

"How about this one?" asked the Ger-Man, holding up a black t-shirt adorned with a white feather on its chest that had been sent from NZ. "It's also a football shirt!"

The Caspi-Man was skeptical to say the least. But the Ger-Man was determined. He regaled the Caspi-Man with tales of rugby (who knew he knew of such things?), the glory of the All Blacks, and with impressions of the Haka. Attempts at the Haka even. I was dispatched (to the internet, of course) to obtain the true text. (And might I tell you - there are few things that are quite as amusing on a Saturday morning as a full blooded German Ger-Man attempting to teach his bewildered, half dressed 3 year old son the Haka.)

It was the internet, though, that I ultimately credit with winning the t-shirt a high profile place on the Caspi-Man's preferred-wearing rotation. And, specifically - this brilliant 'You-Tube' clip of
The All Blacks vs Tonga


(One of the few teams that can do something other than look bemused in the face of the Haka.)

Parents of previous generations could never have dreamt of this option!

Then again, parents of previous generations probably didn't have to try to explain to other shocked parents in the local Duesseldorf park, why their half German, half Australian son has just run up to the faces of their alarmed off-spring, with arms up, eyes bulging, toungue out, while shouting random words that sound a bit like profanities...