海角大神

鈥淟ife is short. Have an affair,鈥� is the motto of the Ashley Madison website, designed to pair married people for extra-marital affairs. That motto also seems to be part of a growing public acceptance of a practice affecting families.

While the Ashley Madison site tells us 鈥淟ife is short,鈥� the memories of children 鈥� whose lives have been disrupted by family unrest like an affair or divorce 鈥� are longlasting.

The recent influx of cheaters in the news 鈥� L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling as one example, Monica Lewisky writing about her affair with Bill Clinton for Vanity Fair as another 鈥� and memories of my own father鈥檚 marital indiscretions, make me wonder why some people think a site like this is a good idea.

I鈥檝e had the song 鈥淭he Lusty Month of May鈥� the from Lerner & Loewe's musical, 鈥淐amelot鈥� stuck in my head since the other day.

In the song, the character of Queen Guinevere blithely sings, 鈥淭ra la, it's May, the lusty month of May. That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray.鈥�

The Queen, a new bride, adds, 鈥淭hose dreary vows that everyone takes, everyone breaks. Everyone makes divine mistakes, the lusty month of May!鈥�

It鈥檚 a great tune. So great, in fact, that I began singing it within earshot of my son Quin, age 10, who also began singing it.

鈥淪o what鈥檚 lusty mean,鈥� he asks me, after dancing around the room singing the song which he鈥檇 looked-up on YouTube.

He adds, 鈥淚 love this song because it鈥檚 all about it being ok to make mistakes.鈥�听听

In my mind, I saw an imagined 鈥淢other of the Year鈥� award with my name on it spontaneously combusting.

Memo to me: Not only do parents need to think before they speak in front of kids, but before they sing as well.

I had to explain to Quin what the song was about and why it really wasn鈥檛 a good thing, because in the end Queen Guinevere cheats on her king husband with Sir Lancelot, which leads to war, the death of King Arthur and destruction of the legendary symbol of honor and chivalry, the Round Table.

鈥淥K. The May rule was stupid,鈥� Quin says, matter-o-factly. 鈥淕ood thing we don鈥檛 have that problem anymore.鈥�

This is the first time I have ever had a discussion about cheating with Quin that didn鈥檛 involve sports or school, but as something that could happen in a relationship.

Quin is still at the age where relationships with girls seem attractive in theory, but in reality he freaks out about just saying听 "hello" to one.

I didn鈥檛 tell him how age-old and tenacious the issue of infidelity is, nor how it affects families. That鈥檚 a story for another day when he鈥檚 older.

However, cheating is a hot button issue for me.

My three older sons know that my parents divorced because my dad, an author, cheated on mom with his book illustrator whom he often brought to our home.

I was about 7 when they broke up, and had no idea why mom was crying and dad kept telling her to 鈥済row-up鈥� and accept it. I grew up not knowing what was happening between my parents.

When I was old enough to understand, it destroyed an already weak relationship with my father.

I felt complicit in his affair by having his mistress around so often that I came to like her and accept gifts from the woman that he eventually left my mom to marry.

When I was old enough to grasp what had been going on all those years, I felt like an idiot because everyone knew my dad had a mistress and my mom stayed faithful to only him.

While my father was being completely honest about his cheating, I was simply too young to process what was happening to my family.

Because I had grown to like and seemingly accept my dad鈥檚 mistress without actually understanding the moral and marital complexity it drove a wedge between my mom and me.

Unfortunately, my husband of 25 years, a newspaper editor, chose to bring up the stories about Donald Sterling and the Ashley Madison site as a conversation starter on our weekly date night last night. He said the site was the subject of much mirth at his office.

While he 鈥渨ould never鈥� use such a site, he said he doesn鈥檛 have an issue with people who do. The conversation rapidly devolved into a stony silence that is still in effect 12 hours later.

Infidelity is nothing to be causal about and it shouldn鈥檛 be fodder for water cooler laughs.

Recently, I wrote about an incident in baseball in which Yankees Pitcher Michael Pineda was caught cheating more than once by using pine tar on the ball in order to gain an unfair gripping advantage. 听

As a result, I was slammed on Twitter by baseball fans condoning cheating because they claimed everybody does it. I think that between the proliferation of cheating in sports, and sites that encourage cheating on spouses, we are setting up people to become desensitized to dishonesty.

The casual acceptance of excuses for cheaters should really resonate with any parent who has ever heard a child give the very lame excuse for wrongdoing as, 鈥淓verybody was doing it.鈥�

It seems that it is much easier to rationalize actions we know have negative effects when they benefit us personally.

To paraphrase businessman and motivational speaker Scott Alexander, doing good is hard and doing evil is easy. Stay away from easy.