Mothers are so embarrassing. Particularly when their fond memories linger around in the internet archive. An alert reader dug out this 2001 interview with Eugenia Brin, the Google founder's Russian-Jewish mother, from a time before Google's corporate communications doled out information as sparingly as a White House press secretary. The item on Sergey, part of Women.com's package on the Men of the Internet, includes baby photos and the blush-inducing childhood anecdotes that lead most guys to hide away parents for as long as possible. Nuggets: Sergey Brin didn't help around the house; he's absent-minded; and he dated older women, even as a teen. For more:

First word: He was born in Russia and his first word was golova, which is "head" in Russian. He had a toy like a clown that had a head turning around, and it was a three-syllable word, which was pretty surprising. He was 16 months.

Chores: It wasn't a strickly ruled household. But, no, he didn't really help too much.

Worst habit: I'd say his worst habit is all of a sudden in the middle of the conversation, he goes somewhere in his world and forgets about the conversation that he's having at the moment. It really annoys me. You have to repeat the question a couple of times until he comes back.

High school girlfriends: There was a girl who invited him to her prom — she was a year older. Sergey never had his own prom because, as his father puts it, he dropped out of high school.

On being a high school dropout: He went through his junior year, and it was more or less obvious that there wasn't much else that he could take in high school. So he applied to college and was accepted.

Who Mom wants to see him with: Somebody exciting who could be really interesting to him. And the rest, I guess, doesn't matter. As long as he is in love and he's interested in the person. Would be nice if that person were pretty friendly too, and had a sense of humor that could match his.

Why Mom thinks he's still single: First of all, he's just 27. I don't see too many young American men who marry before this age. And second, I don't guess he's met the right girl.

Biographies: Women.com's Men of the Internet 2001: Sergey Brin [Internet Archive]
Sergey Brin [Wikipedia]