Did You Say “Beavcoon”?

“Mom, do we have Beavcoons in West Hartford?” my youngest daughter asked.

I definitely did not hear that right. “What’s that, honey?”

“Beavcoons!” she yelled from the other room. “Do we have Beavcoons in West Hartford?” At this point, she was exasperated, resenting me for not hearing her the first time.

“Beavcoon,” she repeated. “It’s a mix between a Beaver and a Raccoon.”

There were so many things wrong with the word, Beavcoon, my head spun.

I stuck to simple biology and pictured a Beaver mating with a Raccoon up at the reservoir. Impossible. Had I missed something? We’ve got Labradoodles and Maltipugs, but those are all in the dog family, right? A Beavcoon? That’s unnatural.

“Why are you asking me this?” I pressed her.

“Spencer on iCarly said Beavcoons are real.”

“Spencer on iCarly, the television show? Please don’t tell me you’re believing everything you hear on a TV show!”

“Can I just Google it to see if there’s a picture?”

I stalled in the moment, appreciating how much the world had changed since I was 10 years old. She wants to Google for further information. The encyclopedia had officially gone the way of the horse and buggy.

She then reached for my laptop. 

I put my hand over it. “No, let me do it.”

“I want to see a picture of one,” she squealed.

“But I think I should be the one to research this word.” Plus, I was certain they didn’t exist. Or did they? I had a small seed of doubt, which sat right next to the shock I seem to always feel when I realize I am raising kids in the digitized age of over-misinformation. “I’ll see what I find and will tell you.”

True story. I sat there at my kitchen table and Googled Beavcoons.

I learned a lot. I learned that someone with way too much time on their hands created a Facebook page for the mythical creature and that Wikipedia once had a definition, but deleted it. I learned that, no, there were no Beavcoons in West Hartford, or anywhere else for that matter.

Scariest of all, I learned that for a few seconds, I believed in something entirely false, which is the greatest lesson I taught my daughter that day.

“Do not ever believe what you read or hear, at least until after you run it by me.” I smiled and patted her on the head. “And when you’re 15 and you stop listening to me, be sure to check and double check your sources. Too much information breeds a lot of misinformation.”