Three kids laughing around a computer are more fun than one kid weeping over a broken laptop. They are quieter than three kids screaming and chasing each other around the living room.

It's great when they are three kids playing outside or doing their homework, of course. But I want to talk about the llama in the room.

Specifically, I'd like to talk about the sociopath killer cartoon llama in a hat they're watching. I'm not proud of this. Though I am relieved to say that he is funnier and less annoying than the ethnic stereotype-laden crank calls they were giggling over last week on YouTube.

The llamas with hats, like the hardcore metal my 13-year-old son favors or the graphic novels about zombies my 11-year-old son devours, fascinate my brood. But I have to admit that they are age-inappropriate and, often, kind of gross.

Still, there they are in our living room. I let them stay because the kids found them on their own, without my help or interference. I let them stay because the kids are passionate about them.

I miss the days before dinosaurs and even guns became “boring” to my older two kids. True, I did have to spend a fair amount of time reassuring concerned educators that, no, we didn't own any actual guns. But that was a small price to pay for the pleasure of watching them actively seek knowledge for its own sake.

None of my daydreams of parenting ever included the possibility that my kids might not spontaneously overflow with the kind of intellectual passions that lead to career goals or grandiose artistic dreams.

Heck, I even took the oldest to a hardcore metal show a few months ago. Watching 300 kids bang their heads to the hardcore metal stylings of Chelsea Grin and Acacia Strain was not my idea of a great time. I hated live bands in clubs when I was a teenager myself.

(For the record, there were other moms in equally reluctant attendance, also wearing earplugs. None of us looked like Cher as the heavy metal mom in Mask.)

I am not trying to be a cool mom. Certainly there are games I won't let the kids play or groups whose songs I won't let my son download because I find them offensive. I cyberstalk my oldest kid on Facebook. My younger two aren't on any social networks except for the 8-year-old's increasing rare forays to Club Penguin.

They only get to use the computer in the living room or in the master bedroom. The oldest has a TV in his room that gets five channels and a phone with no data plan.

But they can take anything they want out of the library with my blessing. And they can watch the llamas.

I will keep pitching the “boring” things I love, like museums and nonfiction, for their consideration. Maybe some of that stuff will spark with them eventually, the way the stupid llamas and screaming singers and zombies have. Until then, my goal is to protect their pilot lights without setting the place on fire.

I want my kids to know how it feels to geek out on something—almost anything—before they start regularly encountering the truly dysfunctional ways—drugs, booze—that adults cope with boredom.