Video Games and Family

Video games are a huge part of my life. They have been since I was 7, and a NES system entered our house with a cartridge of Super Mario 3. I'd played Mario games before but this was the first one that I had access to in my own house. That was when the addiction started. This may be the reason why the list of systems that were in my own house reads like a Nintendo's greatest hits roster, including about every possible incarnation of the Game Boy. I think the only one we missed was the Virtual Boy, but I got to play that once at a friend's house and it gave me a headache, so I didn't mind too much.

My family was split over video games the way way most families were back then; the kids loved them, the parents not so much. My mother kept telling me how awesome BurgerTime and Centipede were, and how I was playing Tetris wrong when I covered over holes on the bottom. (In her defense, she was right.) But the concept of having them in her home as opposed to the arcade was a little foreign to her at first. I cannot think of a time where she sat down and grabbed a controller and played with me. And the times my father did can be counted on one hand, with fingers left over. My parents would watch my siblings and I play, but never join in.

My wife Kim grew up in a house where video games didn't exist. Her younger brothers eventually loaded some on the family computer, but they were considered a waste of time by the family and she never played them. When we got married, her attitude towards my games was understandably negative, but I eventually won her over. I handed her my DS one day and showed her how to play Final Fantasy III. 4 hours later she handed it back because her hands were tired and she was stuck. I had expected 4 minutes, tops. She finally let me buy a Wii, as long as she got a "toy" too. I'm almost positive she's played our Wii as much as she's used that iPod I got her to even the score.

My family that I grew up in had video games, but just us kids played together. My wife and I play now, and will definitely be playing with our daughter in a few years. She tries now, but at 18 months she's got a little ways to go. But even though I've gotten my father to sit down once and play LittleBigPlanet with us, I never thought it was something that his generation would seek out as a way to spend time with family. Then I read this.

How "World of Warcraft" helped me through my divorce

A mother going through a divorce used World of Warcraft as a way to bond with her 9 year old son. Their family was falling apart, and so she used an interest her son had to pull herself to him. She states that she never would have played WoW on her own, and that the game is not for her, even though she is now a Level 21 Darkspear Troll mage. Yet she plays the game, and through it her son is able to communicate his love for her, something most 9 year-old boys find hard to do.

I will have gaming in my house when I grow up (if I ever grow up), and I will continue to share it with my wife and children, so that it can bring us together. I hope other people can see this too, not so that more people become gamers, but so that more people allow the things in their families to draw them closer, not push them away.