Leading up to the country's annual cultural spectacle, an NFL cornerback gave a post-game interview that instantly became a national Rorschach test.

Seattle Seahawks defensive back Richard Sherman was either vaunted as an inspirational success story for his rise from Compton to Stanford graduate to NFL All-Pro, or derided as a classless thug for calling out an opponent as a "sorry" and "mediocre" wide receiver.

In fact, his behavior can encompass both.

When more than 100 million of us plop in front of our wide-screen TVs to witness this subplot in the Super Bowl drama, it may be worth explaining to the youngest viewers among us that those portrayed as heroes and villains on the screen are usually more complicated characters.

Sherman's case in point: He harnessed his insatiable ambition and work ethic to propel himself, the son of a trash collector, from a rough neighborhood in L.A. to salutatorian of his high school class. He motivated others to reach, not just for a football or basketball, but for their academic potential. He started a charity focused on giving inner-city kids the most likely keys to success: school supplies and textbooks.

Isn't that the kind of professional athlete we love to cheer?

He's also got a mouth that won't quit. He's a sportsman with a skewed sense of sportsmanship, in the eyes of many parents.

Like many other parents, we watched the NFC Championship game with our young children. Our 8-year-old son, in particular, cheered Sherman's spectacular play that clinched Seattle's trip to the Super Bowl.

Watching the post-game interview, he immediately looked to gauge our reactions after Sherman delivered a rant fit for a costumed professional wrestler ready to throw a metal chair.

"Did he just say some bad words?" our son asked.

"No, he didn't say any bad words. But he said some bad things about another player. And you would never say anything like that after winning a game," my husband said.

Odds are great that the vast majority of our children will never play in the NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB. They are not going to be among the world's elite athletes playing on the largest stages. But there will be millions of children playing in countless youth sporting events every weekend of the year.

Obviously, we want them to learn how to be gracious in victory and defeat.

The Super Bowl -- this annual most-watched, sexed-up and violent affair -- might be a strange place to look for life lessons. But it's an event that influences so many young notions of who and what is awesome. It's rife with teachable moments.

As someone who has loved the game since watching with my dad as a child and then cheering for my younger brother when he played in high school, I realized as a parent that watching professional football with children comes with some responsibility beyond that of a zealous fan.

We take for granted -- or relish -- the inherent brutality of the game. Just prior to Sherman's scene-stealing denouement, we witnessed another player's gruesome knee injury, replayed over and over during the game. There's also the issue of the lifelong damage done by repeated concussions, which the league attempted to settle with $765 million to brain-damaged former players. A judge refused to approve this settlement because it may not be enough to cover the damages.

President Barack Obama recently said that if he had a son, he wouldn't want him to play professional football, comparing it to the known risks one takes when smoking. Sports medicine and emergency room doctors have said they wouldn't let their sons play the game at any level.

There's an opening to talk about the importance of prioritizing one's long-term health and safety over the competitiveness in a game.

Besides the physicality of what happens on the field, the Super Bowl provides plenty for parents to discuss with their children during or after.

The $4 million ad spots are bound to glorify drinking, include some patently sexist images and detail the pharmaceutical solution to erectile dysfunction. The halftime show is unlikely to be as racy as a Beyonce number or lead to any wardrobe malfunctions, but it's still best to watch with the remote in hand.

Sherman's rant, much like the sport itself, was emotional, loud and over-the-top.

But within 24 hours, he apologized for "attacking an individual and taking the attention away from the fantastic game by my teammates."

There's a quote worth sharing.

Meg Gerritson, 31, remembers the moment she felt like a mom stalker.

Gerritson, of Hull, Mass., was filling her car's gas tank at a station down the street from her house. She noticed a young mom walking into the store, pulling her son in a wagon behind her. The woman looked laid-back and fun. Her son held a surfboard. Gerritson, who lives in a beach town, loves to surf and had a young son about the same age.

"Who is that?" she thought to herself. "I've never seen her before." She was at the stage in early parenthood that can feel so isolating.

"I thought to myself in the car, 'Do I follow her?'" Her immediate next thought: "That's so creepy! I'm not a stalker!"

That's also when it clicked.

There had to be an easier way to make friends with other like-minded mothers.

As it turns out, two other moms -- Christa Terry and Julia High -- had the same idea. Why couldn't they do for moms what eHarmony and Match had done for singles?

They found each other while doing research on this business idea. Beyond sharing an entrepreneurial spirit, they had each had their own challenges finding the right playgroup.

Gerritson's son Jack, now 2, has severe nut and egg allergies. She quickly figured out how this would affect social relationships when she signed up for a local moms' group outing. She had asked the organizer if Jack's food allergy would be a problem, and was assured the playdate would be safe for him.

There were at least a dozen 1-year-olds at the event, and one boy was eating peanut butter crackers. Gerritson, whose son is sensitive to even being touched by someone who has eaten peanuts, approached the boy's mother and said, "I hate to say this, but would you mind putting those away?"

The woman looked at her and said, "Oh, it's okay. Your son doesn't have to eat them."

At that point, Gerritson felt uncomfortable enough that she simply left the event early.

"I was trying to make friends, not enemies," she said.

One of her business partners, Terry, 34, of Beverly, Mass., had two premature children and found it difficult to find other moms who could relate to her concerns about taking them out when they were babies.

And across the country, High, 35, of Kirkland, Wash., had just relocated from the East Coast and didn't know anyone. She remembers being in a park shortly after moving and watching her 2-year-old play with a little boy about the same age.

"I was chatting up the boy's mom. We were getting on so well, so I asked for contact information. It turned out -- of course -- that they were from Canada, and had just stopped at this park to take a break from their road trip."

Gerritson, Terry and High have launched Mom Meet Mom, a national website for mothers seeking friends that takes into account location and personality. The site promises to eliminate the awkward and accentuate the connection.

Women can register their personal information for free, along with answering a short survey about the type of parent they are and the type of friends they are seeking. Even details like allergies, or other health considerations, can be factored in. The site uses geomapping and social mapping to generate the best matches.

It launched in Boston last Mother's Day and rolled out nationally by the end of July. The founders have at least 10,000 registered users in the U.S. and plan to expand internationally in a few weeks, with their eyes on Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Now, research (and common sense) suggests that attracting and keeping meaningful friendships is not a problem unique to mothers. The State of Friendship in America Report, published by LifeBoat, which describes itself as a movement of people rediscovering friendship, claims most Americans are in a friendship slump and that the country faces a friendship crisis. The 2013 report says only a quarter of adults in its survey reported being truly satisfied with their friendships. They singled out Gen Xers as the most in need of true friends.

Incidentally, that generation is now at an age when many people are in the throes of caring for young children.

And so, the playground is the new singles bar.

"It's a shot in the dark," Gerritson said. You may be a vegan who ends up investing a lot of time in a conversation with a woman who can't imagine a meal without meat.

Their site is designed for mothers, even expectant ones, with children of any age.

She touted a success story: One of her friends met a match through the site who only lives a mile down the road from her and has a daughter the same age. The two turned out to be so compatible that they've gone into business together.

Some friendships just click.

The circumstances of that evening made ideal kindling for the explosion in store.

I was running late to an event, for which we couldn't find a sitter. I was exhausted near the end of a hectic weekend and already making mental lists for the week ahead.

It was in this perfect storm that my husband noticed the spilled nail polish on my daughter's bedroom floor. The very nail polish I had explicitly forbidden her from using on the new carpet.

My voice reflected how upset I felt at my tween daughter.

It was a loud and angry voice.

But rather than apologize and attempt to clean up the mess, which had happened some time earlier and been conveniently ignored, the child began crying herself, as if she was the victim in this scenario.

The more she cried, the angrier I got.

And the louder I yelled.

Any rational person could see the cycle between my yelling and her crying, but neither of us was having a rational response by this point.

It's fair to say that I lost it.

I screamed at her to stop crying and slammed my hand on her doorframe so hard that the sharp pain startled me. I had never hit something so hard out of anger. It knocked a degree of sense into me. I stopped rushing to get ready. I stopped yelling. I sat on her bed and told her to clean up her room while her father worked to get the stain out of the carpet. I talked to her about why I had gotten so angry. She apologized, and we hugged before I left.

I felt completely drained.

It's exhausting to get angry and yell. I grew up in a house with parents who yelled, one much more scarily than the other. While it's never fun to be yelled at as a child, I have learned that it feels far worse to be the enraged yeller. There's the physiological discomfort that accompanies rage: Your pulse picks up, eventually pounding; your breathing becomes shallow and jagged; you feel slightly out of control.

For those of us who relish a sense of control, this temporary sense of its loss is perhaps the most damaging piece of rage -- beyond the remorse, beyond the hurt.

As part of the generation of parents who gave up corporal punishment to discipline our children, we defaulted to yelling to get their attention and let them know that we really meant business. In the short-term, and with some children, yelling might work. But in the long-term and with many other children, it is useless.

Intellectually, I knew that getting angry never made a lasting change in my daughter's behavior. And how ironic that what would upset me most about her -- her struggle to regulate and control her emotions -- was exactly how I was responding to her.

The day after the nail polish incident, I opened a drawer of my nightclothes and found a large box with a bow tied around it. Inside were two books from my bookshelf: "Love and Anger: The Parental Dilemma" and "Loving Your Child is Not Enough: Positive Discipline That Works," both by Nancy Samalin and co-authors. I had intended to read both at some point but hadn't gotten around to it.

I asked my daughter if she had put them in my drawer. She said she had. She had read them both and said I might find them useful.

I read the slim volume on anger first. It offered a straightforward, simple message: Parents can be driven to periodic madness by our children, yet we rarely talk about it. "Love and Anger" is more than two decades old, but the advice is as practical today as when it was first written. Learning to respond in a calmer way takes some self-awareness and practice.

The book helped change my perspective. I was done giving away my own power and allowing a child to push my buttons to that extent. The bruise on my hand for the rest of the week reminded me that I was never going to let myself get that angry again.

It's been a few months since that incident. I've certainly had moments when I've felt a surge of anger at some misbehavior or disrespect.

But I am more aware of how I'm feeling when I start to get upset. I deliberately lower my voice when I want to raise it. I realize the only way to regain a measure of control in such a situation is by controlling myself. 

Recently, I asked my daughter: "Have you noticed a difference in the way I respond to you?"

"Yes," she said.

"You can do the same thing. You can reclaim your own power in how you choose to respond to us," I told her.

The purple bruise eventually faded from the side of my hand.

The lesson is still fresh.