I often think about writing something more personal to me. Gaming is an apparent personal love of mine, but I wanted something to do with it that had a bit more feeling. Because it’s a huge part of my life, being a parent comes up quite often, so I thought I’d do an ongoing series (as I come up with thoughts on the subject) about being a gaming dad. Hope you enjoy!

The Old Man

This weekend, I attended a county fair. I do so every year, and I don’t enjoy it. I won’t say I “hate” the experience, but it’s not my type of environment. Being surrounded by farm animals and people that I have very little I have in common with would be like any one of them attending a Star Wars convention with me. Except, I don’t know if they could resist complaining about the situation they’re stuck in. I can resist the urges because I know my kids have a great time. My daughter loves seeing the animals and my son loves seeing the farming equipment.

There was another pair of young boys, maybe 7 or 8 years old, who evidently also enjoyed farm equipment. They were given a bit freer reign in the fair and made the mistake of climbing into the seat of an antique tractor at just the wrong time. Just as one sat in the drivers seat, an old couple on electric power chairs happened to drive by them. The old man whipped his Jazzy around and proceeded to yell at the kids to get down from the tractor. When I say yell, I mean YELL. He yelled louder at these kids than I’ve ever yelled at anything in my life. He went on about how putting up a rope didn’t matter to these kids (even though there was NO rope….or sign saying not to climb or touch the machines).

Then he rode on…probably happy with what he’d accomplished.

I wish, so badly, that I would have thought to use my camera to capture the look of rage on his face. Instead I stood there stunned and using every bit of will that I had to not approach him and ask why he was such a hate filled old man. Those weren’t his kids…those weren’t his tractors…they were just a couple of brats doing something that annoyed him and he didn’t care about the consequences.

Sure, they shouldn’t have been climbing the farm equipment that was made for years and years of rough labor. Who knows what damage they may have caused! But what got me is that those two kids he yelled at were having an experience. Maybe an experience that could have been a small part that shaped their future, and this random old man with all of his anger changed that experience into something negative. Now they’ll have this memory of tractors forever tainted by the scolding they got from a stranger. It got me thinking about how I correct my children’s mistakes. A recent example of this would be gaming.

My kids love watching me play games. Now that my daughter is 5 and my son is 3 they want to start doing more gaming on their own. It’s a fantastic feeling I get when they say they want to play a game, coupled by the fear that I have to aide them. I may love games, but there’s this horrible part of me that can’t stand to watch people play games badly. I don’t mean that I can only watch people who play them amazingly because I’m not fantastic by any means, but when someone plays a game truly horribly, I want to rip the controller out of their hands and show them what they’re doing wrong. Yet, if I were to go off the deep end like that, I’d be no better than the old man. I’d be damaging an otherwise fun experience. So I just bear with it and allow them to make mistakes, attempting to get a word or two of help in when I can, and ignoring the fact that my son has Mario’s kart stuck in a corner while he whips the controller back and forth.

I know eventually, they’ll get it, and they’ll do so by figuring it out mostly on their own, with gentle nudges rather than damnation. I don’t want to be the old man, nor do I want to raise kids who will one day be the old man.

Steve "Slurms" Lichtsinn

Blogger and Podcast host for Multiplaying. All viewpoints in my words whether written or spoken are my own, and do not reflect the views of the community I am a part of. I don't do this for a living, and it shows!