The Modern Dilemma: What Games Do You Play With Your Kid?
I’ve never been a conventional person. This often gets me in trouble, even with people who know and love me. I don’t care much about conventional ideas of dress, don’t much like socializing at gatherings of family and friends and, worst of all, as a man I do not and have never, even as a kid, much enjoyed sports. Baseball is the only sport I really like all that much, and even that I’m not interested in enough to follow regularly. I’d rather read something, or write something, or listen to music, or watch a good movie.
This represents a particular challenge to me as a father, since I just do not enjoy, and have never been good at, the traditional “boy stuff.” I don’t play catch with my kids, for example. I’m not the one to teach a kid to dribble a basketball or how to throw a curve ball or any of that. I wanted to teach my kid about guns (I did grow up around those and know how to handle them) but we never had the money for that.
What, then, do I do with my sons, especially once they evolve beyond the toddler games that everyone plays like wrestling on the floor? Fortunately for me, with my elder son, when he was 3 years old or so, I found it: video games. I’ve been working with computers and playing with video games since the late 1970s. I’ve never been an addict, or a monster great player, but I like ‘em and have fun with ‘em. With Jake, I was able from an early age to play video games with him, or have him sit with me and watch and interact while I played something too complex for him or a little too scary for him like the Legend of Zelda series. He would watch fascinated as Daddy “created” the movie we were watching together. It was awesome. Eventually of course as he got older he didn’t need me for that, but we could still play games together, and talk about games. It was perfect.
With my younger son it was more of a challenge, first because he’s still only 3 years old, and because for the longest time he had no interest whatsoever. He’s a very different kid from his older brother. Eventually the magic of YouTube and its many kid videos, and online games for toddlers, did the trick. We’ll see where it goes with little Draco, but as his dad I’m finally learning to connect again with this brilliant and quirky young lad. It’s a joy.
But anyway, this is about conflicts I’m having now regarding my 10 (nearly 11) year old son Jake. When the divorce hit, which I’m still ashamed about, it was wrenching on multiple levels, not least of which was that I didn’t know how to go about reconnecting with him. We’d drifted apart due to a wide variety of reasons, some of it my alcoholism, some of it my hectic work schedule, some of it me just accepting that he was getting older and needed to play games without his dad. But once we lost daily contact, I had to find ways to reconnect. But thanks to the magic of the internet, a solution became manifest. He got an Xbox 360 for Christmas, and with my last paycheck in January after my layoff, I bought myself a used one, and I bought us both connections to Xbox Live. This gift not only let him know that his dad still cared about him and wanted him to have fun, but also gave us a way to connect to each other. It also let me get to know some of his friends, who he would play with online. Xbox Live is great stuff; you can connect microphones to your game controllers, and play interactive games with friends and family on it, and actually talk to people while you’re playing–share strategies and tips, collude in sinister plots together, and of course joke around and make fun of each other. Not only was I able to play with Jake even when I wasn’t physically present, but I could even get to know some of the other kids he played with. It was a joy, and still is.
(And yes, before someone asks: when you are underemployed, you cannot spend 8 hours a day, 7 days a week job searching. Well you can, but there’s not much point and nobody does that. So yes, playing online in my spare time–as opposed to watching TV all day like your typical underemployed lout–has also been a great stress and frustration reliever. And yes, you can look me up and play Halo 3 with me if you like, I’m a mediocre player but my gamer tag is “Gnarlwode.” Hopefully it wasn’t a big mistake to reveal that publicly.)
Video games have obviously come a long way from the “Space Invaders” days. The average video game player is now in his or her 30s and is quite often married with kids. I would have loved playing video games with my dad growing up, and I’ve had more than one of Jake’s friends (online and off) tell me they think it’s the coolest thing in the world that I play them with Jake. “I wish my dad would do that” is something I’ve heard many times. This is why I increasingly get impatient and irritated with people who still act like this is a juvenile activity: it is no moreso, in my view, than playing chess or playing basketball with your kid. In some ways, it’s a heck of a lot better. In any case, this is what my son and I do, and I sense that it will eventually be what Draco and I do together. You play “catch” with a baseball and glove with your kid, and let me play video games with mine, and we’ll call it a draw okay?
So. Now we begin to approach the area I’m actually conflicted over.
From the very beginning with Jacob, his mother and I made a lot of decisions together, and it was surprising how on most of the big issues we were perfectly in sync. First off, the children were not allowed to swear, because it was important that they learn how to not-swear when they needed to. Plus, of course, a lot of adults completely freak if they hear “bad words” from kids, or get mad when their own kids hear such words. So we made it a policy to explain all this early on, but otherwise never made the slightest effort to shield them from hearing “such language.” Not only would they hear every word in the English language, but if they wanted or needed to know, we would without much hesitation explain exactly what any given word meant. Sex was the same way: they didn’t need more information than they asked for, or detailed explanations of gross mechanics, but when they asked a question they got a straightforward answer, and if they asked for more details they got them. We also made no effort to shield them from nudity in movies and no more than privacy and a little modesty demanded in real life.
Violence in movies and games we worried more about. There were multiple discussions about that, but as parents we sort of reached a consensus: we would let the kids be exposed to such things, but with some care and with discussions with them if there was anything truly disturbing. With Jake especially, he got pretty darned sophisticated, and at times he himself would decide something was a little too much for him, which we always respected and encouraged.
Thus we would often shock and dismay some parents. Jake loved watching horror movies with his mom (I’m not a big fan of the genre so that was “their thing,” which is cool anyway, I don’t need to be involved in everything). From a very early age he was watching movies like Jaws, the Chucky movies (he tells me Seed of Chucky is is favorite), the Nightmare On Elm Street series and other slasher flicks, etc. If something’s likely to give him nightmares we talk to him about it, or he voluntarily opts out.
The result has been, so far, a remarkably well-adjusted kid. At one time he obviously started taking play violence a little too far and a little too callously, and he lost video game and violent movie access for a while, but when he got his perspective back the issue went away. He’s generally been an honor student, a reasonably popular kid, and very sweet gentle and loving, particularly with his friends. When he’s gotten into the fights that all boys do, he’s almost always been the target and not the instigator, and a few times we’ve had to encourage him to hit back at kids who get too aggressive. But he just normally does not get violent beyond what any healthy boy does. If his grades are good, he’s not in trouble in school, and he maintains the politeness we’ve always instilled in him since he was a toddler, we haven’t worried about it.
Of course as kids get older, you start getting more conflicted. Things they didn’t used to understand or even be curious about, they start getting curious about or start to understand. So certain kinds of sexual humor or violence start to make you more squeamish as a parent. Still, with regular monitoring and discussions with the kid, we decided not to worry about it too much. So some parents are shocked and dismayed that Jake is allowed not just to watch movies that other kids often aren’t, but also controversial cartoons like South Park and Family Guy, which are crafted primarily for adults and usually only showed late at night. One of the favorite family movies in the Esmay house was always South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a song from this marvelous musical, which is not-safe-for-work at all but should have won an academy award anyway:
South Park - Uncle Fucker Video - Watch the top videos of the week here
More on South Park, including free clips and episodes to watch, here.
Another family favorite is Family Guy, which you can explore the wonders of in this great DVD set and see more of for free right here. But here’s a couple of free and legal clips that are not entirely safe for work either:
There you have it: sex, drugs, violence, and bad language. Now, these clips are not entirely fair (at least not to Family Guy) but his sort of humor is not atypical for either show.
So, what were we talking about? Oh, yes. Video games.
As it happens, video games are much more sophisticated these days, and many are aimed squarely at the adult market–as I suggested above, these days the average age of a video game player is about 35. The video game industry, in response to parental concerns, has done a pretty good job of developing a ratings system much like the one used for movies. It’s called the ESRB, and you can read about its ratings right here. The ratings go everywhere from “EC” (Early Childhood) all the way up to “AO” (Adults Only, usually for extremely sexual and grossly violent games). The most common ratings for games I play with Jake are “T” for Teen (recommended for age 13 and up, even though he’s only 10) and “M” for Mature (recommended for the 18 and over crowd). My view on such games is pretty much the same as for movies: the ratings serve as warnings for me as a father that I have to look something over and discuss it with the kid, but I won’t just forbid him to play something based on a rating. It’s more about using the ratings as a warning sign: “I need to look at this, think about it, and talk about it with the boy.”
Jake and I’s favorite game for a while was called “Destroy All Humans,” a delightfully funny game wherein you play an alien named Crypto who runs around 1950s America terrorizing citizens and local yokel cops, frying them dead with ray guns, using your flying saucer to blow up their houses and office buildings, and even using an anal probe to extract people’s brains and eat them. It’s terrific fun. I used to think it was rated “M” but I recently looked more closely and it’s rated “T” for Teen, 13 and up. We started playing it when he was 8. We loved it. A few discussions was all it took.
In the Xbox Live world, Jake’s two favorite games have been Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3. Both carry a rating of “M” for Mature, recommended for 18 and up. I don’t play Call of Duty much as it’s not my cuppa, but it’s a pretty realistic 21st century war game, involving assassinations and other covert operations with lots of killing people. Halo 3 is a Starship Troopers-esque science fiction war game, involving lots of brutal combat using guns or beat-downs with swords, clubs, or gun-butts. One technique of early mastery in the game is to learn the “head shot” with a magnum pistol, sniper rifle, or assault rifle, blowing your opponent’s brains out in a splatter of blood (it’s a quicker kill than a body shot). There’s also foul language and occasional semi-nudity.
Those of you who are saying “I would NEVER allow my kid to play or even look at such games” can save us all time, by the way: your comment is already anticipated and noted. I respect your choices as a parent. Mine is, these are only games, my son is well-adjusted, we talk about these things and he has a quite sophisticated view of them. It’s not effecting his school work, it’s not making him violent, and because it’s basically cartoon violence I don’t have a problem with it. So far anyway.
I know I’m not alone in this attitude. While there are clearly some parents who pay no attention and don’t give a damn, I’m not one of them. I know exactly what my kid’s doing on these games. Indeed, because I play them with him, or often just watch him, I know what goes on. And the online games are filled with kids aged 8, 9, 10, 11 years old–I know only too well, I’ve gotten my ass smoked by more than a few of them. Indeed, the other night a nine year old girl blew my head off with a sniper rifle and/or killed me with grenades eleven freaking times in one game. I was pissed. I only managed to kill her twice in response. After the game, her older brother laughed at me, but I just chuckled and told him he should be proud of his little sister. He said he was. 
Ah, the 21st Century.
You can tell the bad kids from the good kids in these games. The bad ones crow and act like jackasses when they win, and do things like “teabagging” (which I’ll explain some other time, but it’s an interesting anthropological exercise). The good ones say things like “Good game” afterwards, whether they win or lose, and give each other tips and encouragement.
Jake hangs out online with mostly good kids, from what I can see in my interactions with them (which I make a point of doing even when they’re playing something I’m not interested in). One friend in particular I noticed (and here we begin to approach my conflicted status) is named DJ. I actually know his full name, and a bit about where he lives and such. He’s 12, and a genuinely good kid. I don’t mean in a “shine you on,” Eddie Haskell way either, he didn’t even know I was Jake’s dad while we were playing for some time (for a while there Jake didn’t want me to tell anyone I was his dad, but as we’ve been reconnecting these last six months through gaming, he’s started to be proud of his dad and to tell his friends who I am). DJ’s just a good kid: polite, smart, exhibits good sportsmanship, and is genuinely concerned if someone seems down or frustrated while playing. Of all his online friends, I like little DJ the best I think.
So then one day I get a game invite from DJ, and I look and see what he’s playing: the notoriously evil and subversive Grand Theft Auto IV. I’ve never played it. I asked him if his parents knew about it, and he said they bought it for him. “Huh” I thought.
This game is the “bad boy” of the video game market. It’s grossed billions of dollars in sales. In it, you play an Eastern European immigrant named Niko Ballic, a war veteran who comes to America to make his fortune only to find that organized crime suits his style best. He spends most of his time stealing cars and doing other criminal activities, mixing it up with mobsters, drug dealers, prostitutes, etc.
Yet oddly, the game is rated “M” for “Mature” and not “AO” for Adults Only. I’d long suspected what was really going on was that the game makers were intentionally sensationalizing the game’s seedier aspects, and capitalizing on the huge outrage and massive warnings from parents’ groups and such. Indeed, they seem to go out of their way in their advertising to loom the “M for Mature” warning as big as possible, and to put silly things like a scantily clad babe with a lollipop in the marketing materials, courting controversy to get more attention–which often works very well with books and movies, so why wouldn’t it work with games?
Anyway, I had no interest in the game, but because DJ and some of his other friends were playing it, I was unsurprised a few days later when Jake expressed a strong interest in the game. So I told him I’d think about it and let him know. I rented a copy of the game at Blockbuster and played it. I found it boring as all get-out, and the controls frustrating and convoluted, but I gave it an hour or two to see what you could do, which basically involves jumping into cars, riding around crashing into things and people, and shooting people with guns. There’s some sexual reference but it’s mostly double entendres and inuendo and off-screen. I looked at some reviews, including some parents’ groups reviews–this one seemed entirely on the money to me.
The next time Jake came over, I let him play the rental copy, and watched him play it. I talked to him about it. We chatted as he played it, and I laughed as he did exactly what you’d expect a boy to do, which is take to the complicated controls like a duck to water and to get into every form of mischief he could, figuring out everything from how to beat up a pedestrian to how to make a molotov cocktail to terrorize cops with.
My sweet baby boy. So unlike his equally sweet but completely different little brother. This almost 11, almost-a-young-man boy, who I remember cuddling and crooning to and feeding his first bottle in the hospital while his poor exhausted mother was zonked out from anesthesia after a nightmarishly long labor. I watched and we laughed together as he committed at least 10 felonies in as many minutes.
“This isn’t real you know,” I said. “I know, it’s just like cartoons” he said. We talked again a week or so later and he said, “I think Grand Theft Auto can be terrible, but it depends on how you look at it. If you take it too seriously that’s bad.”
As his dad I decided he was the same well-adjusted, sane kid I always knew and loved. The next week, I scraped what I could from my next unemployment check and bought a used copy at Game Stop. What the hell, the child support was paid and I didn’t need anything but gas money. I could squeeze it in. I would own the copy, so it wouldn’t go home with him, but he could play it when he was here so long as he stayed a good kid.
It’s video games. It’s what we do together.
Still, when he does come over here and play it, I feel a bit of a twinge, and worry a bit. Some of his older relatives have actually expressed some outrage at me that I would even allow him to look at it while I play it, let alone let him play it. But hey, I’m his dad, I know him better than anyone but his mom, and I think it’s my call. Nevertheless, one of his relatives (who promised not to turn this into a fight) double-dog dared me to post on this blog that I allow my 10 year old son to play Grand Theft Auto IV online with his friends when he’s with me.
The funny thing is, I remember growing up, and my parents trying to shield me sometimes from sex and violence in media, but getting exposed to it plenty anyway. And, amusingly, they rarely paid real attention to what I read, and some of the stuff I was reading as early as age 8 or 9 make Grand Theft Auto look tame. Maybe that’s proof of something, because I’m such a scumbag I wouldn’t want my kid to turn out as awful as I did.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s entirely possible for a kid that age to be well-adjusted and to know the difference between fantasy and reality.
What do you think?
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26 comments
Obviously not having raised any children, I don’t have experience on that end. But in general, in life, pretending to intelligent creates that something is true when it’s false is not a great recipe for success.
Generally, I think that the argument is that you should shield children from some sinister force until they’re ready for it. Of course, being learning creatures, people are generally ready for things only after they’ve been taught to deal with it. And when you can’t effectively shield a child from the existence of evil in the world, the most effective strategy would be to try to teach them to deal with it early.
I’ve never understood why it is that some people believe that you shouldn’t rush a person through childhood. Children are not what human beings are meant to be; it makes no more sense to me to try to prolong the negative aspects of being a child (lack of responsibility, ignorance of the world, poor judgment due to inexperience, general incompetence, etc.) than it does to try to prolong the fetal stage by keeping your baby in a fish tank.
Constricting snakes aside, animals generally grow stronger through challenges, not isolation. (I’ve always been very jealous of constricting snakes in this regard: if they eat a lot and just lay around doing nothing, they get more muscular, not fatter.)
That being said, I generally refuse to play video games in which the main character is lauded for acting immorally. The scene in God of War in which you burn an innocent person alive nearly made me stop playing. I read up on the rest of the game and figured that it was a fluke and so I just stopped suspending my disbelieve during that segment (i.e. I regarded it not as a story but as a series of controller movements which satisfied a program’s control logic). I would generally try to encourage my children to look more for the fun in doing good than the fun in doing bad. At the least, I’d probably counter-balance an evil game like GTA with some more serious philosophy on what evil really is. (Not necessarily aquinas for a 10 year old, but maybe C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce.)
Also, children (being human) respond well to making fun of something which is imperfect. The only real danger that an evil video game poses is if the child mistakes it for good; if one makes fun of the actually laughable parts of the game, any danger of the child taking it as something laudible should be greatly minimized.
If I recall correctly, there’s some old saying that the devil can’t stand to be laughed at.
(Btw, as a clarification, I’m using the term "evil game" to mean a game in which the path to success is through evil actions, such as killing innocent people to steal their cars. Games which merely tempt people are not evil; and the mere act of killing is no more a clear indication of whether a game is evil than whether the main character brushes his teeth is. That depends entirely on context: there are many games full of killing which are quite morally good because you’re killing people to prevent them from committing evil deeds which they certainly would. Though I will admit that I somewhat prefer killing robots, those who are already dead, or abominations created by a crazed wizard which live only to destroy. But people on the other army in a just war are fine too. The great thing about fiction is that you can posit any sort of unrealistic setting that you want, and the people who take it serious actually care whether the main bad guy lives to kill and rape; people who don’t take it seriously won’t be harmed either. Though the latter group sometimes acts like their underwear is too tight because they won’t believe that the first group actually does take the game seriously. But that’s just a specific example of people making the mistake of interpreting another’s actions as if they were motivated by one’s own beliefs, and not the person acting’s beliefs.)
"But in general, in life, pretending to intelligent creates that something is true when it’s false is not a great recipe for success."
What?
As for the rest: yes, GTA IV is pretty clearly an evil game, although if you get deeper into the story Niko grows conflicted and has problems due to bad behavior. But there’s no sanitizing that you’re basically in what is the equivalent of a gangster movie as a gangster. There’s simply no denying that.
I don’t think there’s a big problem with letting your kids play video games as long as they understand the difference between fake and real (note the use of the word ‘understand.’ It’s quite different than a child just saying yes to your question).
The problem resides where children don’t have balanced lives. You could have a child that reads all day and I wouldn’t think it was entirely healthy. Children, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the child, need physical activity and variety in their lives. This isn’t just so they keep healthy, but also to socialize them. It forces them to work with others and develop social skills for later on in life. You can’t learn that kind of stuff off Xbox live.
Yeah. Sunday and yesterday I took Jake out to make him learn the neighborhood on his bike. We walked to church together on Sunday (well I walked, he peddled) and all I did was give him basic directions and made him show me he could get there, and made him lead me home without help. Then yesterday I gave him a map and directions to his friend Nick’s house, made sure he knew the basic north/south/east/west orientations, and told him to take us there. It was a mile away, and I made him bike it, with me following about a block behind and refusing to help him. He made it, then when Nick wasn’t home I made him lead us home. Not only to get him some activity, and to get him used to the area, but also to prove to me that he could navigate streets safely in this new neighborhood and find his way home. He could.
I kick him out at least once in a while just so he’ll get some sun.
The funny thing to me about all the people getting up in arms about GTA4 is that the toughest critic on how the Niko Bellic (the main character) acts is Niko. When you pick up a prostitute, afterwards he says, "I’m such a scumbag, why am I doing this?" If you start to drive drunk, he says, "this is a terrible decision. I’m way too drunk to drive."
Of course, a lot of the people who are up in arms are people who think that we should legislate away people’s ability to make any bad decisions.
Phelps’s last blog post..Obama Fears McCain
BTW, my favorite conversation so far in GTA4 is when Niko is driving his public defender girlfriend Kiki to a date, and she is railing on about how it isn’t criminals faults that they act the way they do, because they were underprivileged, and she says, "I have no illusion that if I had grown up in project housing, I would be out there selling my ass for crack."
There’s a pause, and Niko says, "Not everyone in the projects sells their ass for crack."
Phelps’s last blog post..Obama Fears McCain
My almost 22-year-old daughter is pretty well adjusted, and we let her watch (some) "age-inappropriate" movies and shows while she was growing up. She was 11 when SP first aired, and she saw the movie at 13 or so. We don’t watch slasher/gory movies because, quite frankly, we don’t like those kind, so she wasn’t really exposed to them. When "The Fifth Element" came out on video, we let her watch the reconstruction of Leeloo including the partial nude shot; her friend’s parents would make them either cover their eyes or leave the room. There were some movies where we did the same, but those usually involved hot and heavy makeouts, and we would usually fast forward through them. We got some flack from grandparents and others for letting her watch these things (especially South Park), but we knew what she could and could not handle. In fact, if watching alone she would even fast forward through things she didn’t like herself, either involving violence or sex.
As far as video games and such, that’s her dad’s department as I pretty much burned out on "Wonder Boy" back in the late 80’s. I do like watching some games being played, though. I don’t know if my husband would like GTA or not. He likes StarCraft (or WarCraft?) on his PC, as well as football and a few other games on our PS2. Both he and our daughter like the "Ratchet and Clank" series where the objective is to blow shit up with all sorts of fun and wonderful weapons.
It’s all a matter of knowing your children, being able to communicate and guide them as you, the parent, see fit, and then hope and pray for the best.
Other than that…. How about a nice game of chess?
SP = South Park?
My child is extremely gentle to children and animals, but has no problem blasting someone’s head off in GTA or Call of Duty. The same idiots that sanitized Bugs Bunny cartoons in the ’70s & 80’s are the ones up in arms about violent video games and music.
I haven’t forgotten that Tipper Gore was the first Gore to prove she was an idiot - long before Manbearpig.
Dean,
by:
"But in general, in life, pretending to intelligent creates that something is true when it’s false is not a great recipe for success."
I meant that trying to pretend to one’s 10 or 15 year old that there is no sin or vice in the world is not likely to succeed because someone of even trifling intelligence will see how false that is.
SP = South Park?
Yes. Also, Beavis and Butt-Head and their Do America movie.
I often think Tipper Gore got way too much grief for the Parents’ Music Resource Center group she helped found. Unless I’m missing something, all they ever advocated was warning labels and content advisories for parents. Even though I was very much a bleeding-heart lefty in those days, I was actually shocked at how much hostility that evoked from some quarters. Today, such content advisories and ratings systems are absolutely normal and no one makes a big deal of them.
Even though I’ve always been quite liberal in what I allow the kids to see, I think the stickers and ratings are entirely a good thing. Parents with more conservative attitudes have a right to be more restrictive, and all parents benefit from simple warnings.
What’s so bad about what Tipper actually did, or advocated? I still don’t get it.
Dean,
I think that it’s the government forcing people to do it that people really didn’t like. Any time that a person suggests that the enforcers make somebody do something at implied gunpoint, it’s something to be wary about.
Or another way to put it, government is a blunt instrument. Sometimes it’s quite appropriate, but you always want to be wary of people waving hammers around.
Besides, do you really think that all Tipper wanted was small warning labels? You want to be careful of camels, even if all they say that they want to do is stick their nose into the tent.
For the record it was a TRIPLE dog dare, but I digress.
I also had a response written this morning and the power decided to go out at work. I’m hoping the firefox restore thing works and my post was saved. If not I’ll try to rewrite it tomorrow.
In response to some of the people here, this isn’t about the government wanting to shut down our ability to play GTA IV, its about the choices we make as parents about what video games we allow our children to play. I’m 35 and I’m a GTA IV fiend. I think its the greatest game since sliced bread. Where I differ in opinion with our host is the age of the player. He’s made a thoughtful and compelling argument about why its okay for a 10 year old to play it. I had a thoughtful response and the damn power goes out..
Ahh well, hopefully I can recover it tomorrow.
CTL: Well PMRC itself was a non-profit, and Tipper was just with a group of congressional wives. But I do guess the fact that Al and others in Congress actually held hearings was what freaked people out. Still, I always thought Tipper got way too much grief for just raising the issue and making suggestions. Look up the Parents’ Music Resource Center on Wikipedia or other sites, and compare what the group actually expressed concern about and recommended, vs. the reaction to it, and it’s AMAZING the disparity.
JerryK72: I’m more than willing to consider your response. I just hope you’ll remember to keep in mind the fact that the kid’s got all this OTHER stuff in his media diet that’s been there all along. So if nothing else, this might be that I’ve let the slope get too slippery. I’m sure willing ton consider it.
I am always willing to listen to what Jake and Draco’s Kondraciuk relatives think about what’s good or not for the kids. Especially their godparents. His mom and I get the final call of course, but you already respect that.
I don’t have kids yet, but I can already tell that video games are going to be a problem: not the violence, but the sophistication. Children are going to get pretty tired of hearing my generation ramble on about how "In my day we had 2 buttons–3 if you had were blessed with a SEGA Genesis. A SEGA you snot-nosed brats, not a Sony. And we had to blow on the cartridges to make them work, not that it did any good… etc" I suppose it could be made even funnier if you’re from the Atari 1-button age, but that’s just before my time.
As for Tipper Gore and the PMRC: the objections raised by the 3 artists who actually showed up for the hearings– Frank Zappa, John Denver, and Dee Snyder (man do I wish they had recorded some sort of super-group single) were essentially as follows:
1) The government does not, or should not, have the right to force labels on an unwilling industry.
2) The PMRC was reading too much into the music– Dee Snyder infamously accused Tipper of having a dirty mind.
3) The entire issue was another lamentable chapter in the endless exercise of blaming various elements of popular culture for the "downfall of civilization" (Aristophanes wrote a comedy regarding this very thing–"The Frogs" I think– several thousand years ago, in which he interviews 3 dead poets to decide which one can save Athenian society by returning to life. The idea that they needed a dead author to save society was only partly tongue-in-cheek in the context of the play.)
4) One of the Senators serving on the congressional panel had a spouse on the side of the PMRC, which was just kinda sketchy in general. When Snyder was told not to accuse "Senator Gore’s wife" of having a dirty mind, he reminded the panel that he was addressing Tipper Gore, a member of the PMRC, not "Senator Gore’s wife."
5) That concerned parents should listening to their children’s music themselves and discuss it with them as a more actionable way of dealing with that situation.
I don’t have any personal sympathy for nanny-staters– and this was literal nanny-statism–at all, even when their desired ends are reasonable. The PMRC and congress went about this all wrong, basically got "served" during the hearings, and succeeded only in inventing a sticker that many artists were quick to note all but guaranteed increased sales of their albums.
That’s it ? What I’m most disappointed about is that you don’t like the game!!! I played through and finished GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. Those games are so very cool you can do just about anything you can think of.
Loved em. All played on PC, though. GTA 4 will most likely hit PCs in the Fall or at Xmas, and I will most defnitely be getting it.
As for if a 10 year old should be playing it - eh, like you say, that is an individual parents decision that should be based on the specific child. The world is different now than when we were 10. Being 10 today is probably like being 12 or so back in 1980 or so. I don’t think it’s all that crazy.
My daughter is 8 and turning 9 in 2 months and she plays Sims 2 which has some mildly adult oriented content - dating, mating, etc. - and the game is rated T for Teen, but I think it’s fine for her. Hard to imagine more benign content, frankly. But one of her friends is just not allowed to play it, period.
One question I have (and it’s an honest question): what physically active games do you play with your kids if you’re not into sports yourself? I was always something of a geek, but we do hope to have kids soon.
I hope I can get them into hiking and backpacking, which is about the most physical thing I do…
foobarista’s last blog post..More weight loss info…
I was just laughing with someone the other day about all the TV shows and movies I wasn’t allowed to watch as kid. If it got a bad rating from the LI Catholic - for get about it. Mash, Soap - even All in the Family was a no, no at one time at my house. That is - until my folks finally saw them themselves and liked them. I remember begging fow weeks to see Love Story. My winning argument was - I think - "come on ma - we both read the book!" Like Dean, I was reading much worse fare - Harold Robbins, Rosemary Rogers etc - nice clean books!
Someone is always going to be around to criticize your parenting decisions. With me it was never video games - it was bedtime. I didn’t get home ’til 6pm when they were babies - why would I put them to bed at 7pm?
You wrote a long and well reasoned argument. I do not do video games, have watched a niece play one, once, long ago. My grandsons played them incessantly, I think to their detriment. But their household was traumatized by a dad with a very severe PTSD and if I lived there I would have left reality as much as I could also. (he is getting help now) but they are grown and have had a really hard time getting their acts together, but are doing it.
I’m not sure I agree with you on the age thing, a child can be way above age in intelligence and emotion but they are STILL a child. But as you say, that is your call. And I do admire the way you have found to be in touch just not by talk but by an interactive way, every day. That can only be a good thing for both of you. I hope that can be carried through to the younger one also.
We have our children and have such hopes for what they and we will become. It is a really long haul process. My youngest child is 47 (EEKS!!, how can that be?) and we are still working out some issues from interaction with his dad, my husband of 50 years. We love our child intensely at birth. Sometimes that can be disrupted, I’m not saying it was in our case, but I could tell you about a nephew… Anyway in adulthood with our children we still love them intensely, have very good relationships with them and my prayer for you is, that will be your outcome 40 years from now.
My child is extremely gentle to children and animals, but has no problem blasting someone’s head off in GTA or Call of Duty. The same idiots that sanitized Bugs Bunny cartoons in the ’70s & 80’s are the ones up in arms about violent video games and music.
Very true. My kids played violent video games and they watched Bugs Bunny and they’re doing just fine. During the school year, kid’s lives are usually full of stress and boredom. Video games and TV shows provide a much-needed break.
Summertime is different, though, it’s a time to explore. Teaching Jacob to navigate the neighborhood is a great idea. For me, summertime was all about bike riding around the neighborhood, swimming at the shore or at the lake, hiking and camping. If kids get a chance to lead the way on a hike, or if they do something like swimming a certain distance, camping overnight, etc., it can give them a real sense of accomplishment.
Drat. My post was unrecoverable. What follows is all from memory of that post..
Horror movies and certain games like Destroy all Humans, Halo 3 and others like them go over the top to flaunt they are indeed make-believe. The entire Grand Theft Auto series has gone the extra mile to be the most realistic game on the market. Realistic blood, sex, violence, drug use, etc. The only arcade-ish aspect is target system that makes it too easy to kill.
I appreciate the sense of context you’ve thoughtfully given about how you’ve allowed your children a healthy media diet.
I don’t get the slippery slope bit, especially since you are the parent. Just because you foolishly allowed your child to watch horror flicks at 6 doesn’t mean you can’t stop them from playing violent video games at 10.
That’s like me saying I taught Jake to hit you with a toy baseball bat at 6, so it’s okay for him to hit you with the real thing at 14.
In GTA IV it’s not the violence that is the problem. It’s the adult situations. The gratuitous drug use, vulgarity, innuendo. You can even go to a STRIP club in the game.
Prepubescent children are ill equipped to understand it all. The fact that you dislike the game tells me you haven’t even scratched the surface on how truly bad it is for children.
When GTA IV came out I was at my mom’s and made a joke about how I can’t wait to get home to kill some whores. Jake laughed. His mom asked why he thought it was funny. He did not know, but he had heard the word before. She asked two questions in quick succession, Jacob only heard the first and his response was: "You Mom". The second question was, "Who does that remind you of?". Immediately, I defended Jake and said he didn’t know what the word meant. The boy was in tears because he inadvertently called his mom a whore. The tears flowed heavily when he learned what the word truly meant.
So do you think he will know what it means when a hooker says in game: "I can put my whole fist in my mouth, you like that don’t you"
Or how about when an innocent person gets shot and they scream: "Please, Please don’t kill me"
The dialog in the game is very expansive covering many adult topics: abuse, alcoholism, pedophilia, rape, incest, drug addiction, mafia, assassination, execution, jealousy, morality etc..
He may learn a word or phrase in the game and repeat it at school. Next thing you know Social Services come knocking on Mom & Dad’s door looking for "lines of chop".
If the game was just about blood and guts and an awesome soundtrack, it would be no big deal.
Liberty City tries to be a living breathing virtual city. And by all accounts and accolades, has succeeded.
All the virtual people in it are programmed independently to react differently to each situation.
There are psychotic girlfriends, and there are compassionate ones. How can a 10 year old, who still thinks girls are "icky", process this??
The short answer is, he can’t.
Well, so far I’ve watched him play it and I’m not too worried. However, his mom’s got my phone# and I’ve indicated repeatedly to her that I respect her opinions and that I’m more than willing to discuss it with her. Honestly, I crave such discussions.
In the meantime, for now, I think the reviews I’ve read have made it pretty clear that most of this stuff is more suggestive than openly descriptive, and what I’ve seen is not worse than a lot of the movies and such he’s been allowed to watch (in my view anyway, because I find slasher flicks infinitely more disturbing and worrying than semi-realistic depictions of prostitution). I’m still monitoring his use of the game, however, and also still discuss it with him. As I suspected, after initial excitement he seems to be getting increasingly bored with the game, and uncomfortable himself with some of the content. Mostly I think that’s a good growing experience.
Still, I’ve asked his mom to discuss it with me. If she doesn’t want to, then I’ll continue on my current path. If she does, then, we can strategize on how to either minimize his exposure, or even non-traumatically remove the game (like swapping it for something else in the used bin). It’s gonna depend. She knows how to reach me.
I think you have handled the situation very well, and it seems Jake knows the difference between fantasy and reality. This is a good thing. As long as there is that distinction, the arguments about the slippery slope from videogames to the execution chamber at the state pen is really overblown.
GTA IV is just not my thing, but I can see how the constant violence can start to grate and become boring. So if you’re looking for suggestions, here are two Xbox titles that have been out for a while now and may start showing up in the replay bin:
My favorite single-player game of the moment right now is Mass Effect. It’s a huge game world, it has a very deep plot with fascinating characters, (there’s a published sci-fi author leading the dev team), solid gameplay, customizeable characters (you can customize everything from facial appearance to your combat skillsets, and even whether you want your character to be the good "paragon" or the ruthless "renegade", which has a great influence on the way scenes unfold), and jaw-dropping visuals.
For Multiplayer, of course, it’s Team Fortress 2. It’s built for multiplayer from the ground up, and you can choose a role that fits your play style (heavy weapons and soldiers for pure combat, spies and snipers for the sneakier types, engineers and medics for those who like a more support role, etc.) and lots of game choices. And if you get it with the Orange Box, you also get Half Life 2, which is good, and Portal, which is, in a word, awesome.
(P.S. If you want even better game reviews, check out Zero Punctuation… definitely NSFW!)
Man, Kevin’s been after me for ages to try Mass Effect, and I’ve only resisted because I’m afraid to get sucked in…
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