K-a-k-a

How does anyone know anything?
With cries of fake news and opinions rechristened as facts, how does anyone know anything?
“Did you know that there is an animal called a kaka?”
“Huh? No.”
“Seriously, this game I’m playing said so. I typed in k-a-k-a and it said that it’s an animal.”
That was also almost the cause of an accident, so terrified was I at the thought that my nine-year-old son would never think critically, would never understand that not every ‘fact’ on the World Wide Web is properly vetted.
“Look it up,” I instructed. Naturally, my son ignored me as we’d reached our destination. So, I looked it up. “Kaka” is the nickname of a popular Brazilian soccer player, Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, who may be an animal on the field, but is most definitely not a specific, unique species onto himself. At least this I know.

Now to teach this to my son: to question. Assumptions. Sources. Me. Even himself.