For many, Super Bowl XLIX will always be about the game, the way in which it ended and the enduring legacies of the key participants on both sides.

For me, it will always be about the moment I understood the complexities of being a parent. With four children and a fifth on the way, perhaps that moment should have come sooner. Alas, maybe it is only now that I fully understand it.

In many ways, especially as someone who was rooting for the villainous New England Patriots, I wish the game would remain tucked away in the recesses of my memories as one that solidified Tom Brady as the NFL’s greatest quarterback (purely an opinion). I’d like to remember his nearly perfect fourth quarter, bringing the Patriots back from 10 points down and collecting a record-tying fourth Super Bowl ring.

I’d like to vaguely recall in 20 years the look of horror on Richard Sherman and Pete Carroll when that pass was intercepted – but only because it serves as a reminder of how sports can change on a dime, how cruel they can be and how nothing is guaranteed in life (pretty much fact).

And perhaps I will remember all of these things. But I also know that I will remember more about the commercials than anything else. The ads themselves might not be that memorable, but I am certain to not forget the reactions in our house to them.

Especially those of my 8-year-old daughter.

Perhaps it was my fault. I had hyped the game to our precocious second-oldest – and only girl – for hours. The boys and my wife were easy, they were ready for four hours of football’s grandest theatrics and for what would ensue – their father hollering at the TV and cheering wildly for a team that no one else in our area liked.

And man, she was all in. Wearing a throwback Welker jersey from her brother’s closet, our daughter placed herself in a chair next to me and basically did not move – or wasn’t allowed to – for the duration of the game.

Dad’s superstitious nature kicked in just briefly after kickoff. Every Patriots first down, I ran the room and high-fived, in order, our oldest son (12), the youngest son (3), my wife and then returned to give the biggest, double high-five to our daughter before sitting the exact same way we had the play before. (Meanwhile, our 6-year-old son went back in for the between the iPad and the game and playing with toys. Sigh. I took what I could get.)

She squeezed my arm on big third downs, asked all kinds of questions about the rules and the game and cheered to please us at first, then later because she seemed to actually, briefly, kinda care.

Soon, this became as entertaining as the game. My daughter and I were enjoying a bonding moment within the bonding moment of our family.

As the game stayed tight and tension mounted, we were all glued to the TV.

Which included the commercials.

It began with the dead-child Nationwide commercial in the second quarter and ran right on through to the game’s end, specifically, Always #LikeAGirl, Victoria’s Secret and the 50 Shades of Grey trailer.

There is no one way to adequately describe the confusion on a child’s face in, what for a parent, is an awkward moment. There is also not a great way to address the confusion without convoluting it further and getting more questions.

“Why is the boy dead?”

“Why didn’t the parents stop the bath water?”

“I don’t run like that. That’s not funny.”

“Are they making fun of girls?”

“She’s not wearing very many clothes.”

“Those people are kissing a lot and kissing really weird.”

Thanks, guys. Really, just a bang-up job, advertisers. Why didn’t you just air a commercial debunking Santa Claus or an documentary on where babies come from?

And look, n the heels of a national discussion (again) on if athletes are role models and how they are not the parents, there’s Marshawn Lynch grabbing his crotch again. And if he wasn’t, people were talking about it.

Stating the obvious: My wife and I raise our children. No one else. Ultimately, how they turn out is a far greater reflection on us than it is society in general. Yet in being a parent, you’d like to shield them from certain topics and situations for as long as possible, because, as science has proven, their minds just are not ready for it yet.

And it is a simple fact that kids are influenced by their peers, other family members and yes, who they see in movies and on television. You know how I know this? Because I was a kid once. I wore the shoes, rolled the jeans. I acted like my favorite players on the court or diamond.

Back in the 1990s, we had a whole Gatorade campaign centered on “Being Like Mike” for goodness sakes. It was aimed at kids.

Advertising has not changed who it targets, but the topics and the boundaries of those messages have changed.

I have heard it described like this: we urge caution with young athletes lifting weights, noting how the body structure of a 14-year-old is not meant to handle too much lifting because the frame cannot handle the weight. The same is true for the brain. An 8-year-old is can comprehend more than a 6-year-old, but not as much as say a 12-year-old.

These ads, geared towards adults, are viewed by kids who simply cannot contextually understand them. From what the ads mean, to what they infer. They may contain a message, but the absorption of that message is varies widely based upon the receiver.

And we simply do not care.

As eyes begin to roll of readers who fear I’m just complaining or bemoaning something else in society, I’d venture to say you don’t have children. You’d suggest we turn it off, that we have a choice in the matter, that the media does not raise and influence my child.

Some may say that we’ve always had this (though, as noted above, there is a significant difference in “Being Like Mike” and talking about the ghost of a kid whose parents were either a) neglectful or b) neglectful and without Nationwide’s accidental home prevention training.)

My response to this is humble and contrite: it is the right of my wife and I to determine if and when we talk about these issues or topics. They normally don’t see these ads, because our children are not normally up  past 8:45-9:00pm. But the Super Bowl is anything but normal.

I’d rather not be forced to address my daughter’s self-esteem during the Super Bowl because the ad #LikeAGirl – a positive message overall – was viewed incorrectly in the eyes of an 8-year-old simply because she was eight and thought they were making fun of her.

“I don’t run like that, Daddy.”

“I don’t throw like that, either.”

No amount of “I know you don’t” or “that’s not what they meant” could remove the furrowed brow of my little girl. She just didn’t understand the point. In her eyes, she didn’t even know there was a image issue to begin with. But hey, thanks Always for putting it out there.

Is it the advertiser’s responsibility to control the message? At the very least, perhaps a little?

The same as Marshawn Lynch grabbing his crotch with millions of young football players watching him, he controls the message. I can tell my kids that something is wrong or not right, but the follow-up is the same as it was 25 years ago when I was a kid: “But why does he get to do it?”

Explaining six figure fines doesn’t really address that question, either.

I can defend Lynch over not speaking to the media. It does little harm and makes a mockery of what the current sports media has become. Any reporter who can tell you with a straight face they need Marshawn Lynch to write a story about the NFL, Super Bowl XLIX or the Seattle Seahawks is a reporter who is not very good at their job. Write something else, don’t give him the attention and move on.

But I cannot defend or pretend to agree with lewd gestures as an alternate sign of rebellion to the league. Kids don’t know or get that. All they see is the action, not the message.

To Marshawn Lynch, Charles Barkley before him – and all the athletes in between who feel they are not role models, I remain disappointed. No, you are not the role model for my kids. Yes, my wife and I should be and hopefully are. But it is naïve and irresponsible to pretend you are not at minimum an influencer of children everywhere who watch you play and want to be like you. It comes with the millions of dollars, the fans and the fame. They may not know you, but they know you can play and play well.

Show some decency, respect yourself and others with your actions. Athletes demand respect all the time, then do little to earn it with actions such as these. Don’t ask us to embrace you and cheer for you, then pretend to poop out the football.

Similarly, these companies and ad agencies hold the power to do a delicate balance of creative marketing and societal responsibility.

Run your child death ad at 10pm on a Tuesday night, Nationwide. Otherwise, you are anything but on my side. If my kid is awake and watching, that one is on me.

But they knew the reaction the ad would draw, they knew it would spike Twitter trends, Google searches. They knew the value of the ad would increase significantly with that kind of ad, in that moment and the kind of reaction it would garner.

There is no great call to arms coming here. Not this time. I don’t have a solution for something the majority of us do not see as a problem.

I just have disappointment.

My only hope is my daughter remembers the high fives and not the commercials.

Maybe someday, I will too.