Guilt and Gaming

[aaron]

people with children who are depressed are the ones who were not ready to have children in the first place; or the ones who let having children become their potential "cure-all" for their life's problems, and their unhappiness is the product of the glaring realization that they were totally wrong.

that's really all i have to say on the subject.

[alexis524]

i second mjmjr25's post wholeheartedly. Kids are a sacrifice, but well worth it. I thought i was happy before my wife and i had our daughter, but after she came along, our lives took on so much more meaning and fulfillment. Now, i can't even imagine our lives without her. Because our daughter means that much to us, we try to protect her (reasonably) from mature depictions.

[Hatta]

Hm, I didn't intend for that to sound like a "don't have kids" screed, but more of a "this experience is common and predictible". No offense meant.

[noiseredux]

I don't have a kid, but I'm pretty liberal with my cats. I don't mind them seeing some violence, but I am pretty strict about their exposure to sexual content.



EDIT: But seriously, I used to feel guilty not spending as much time with my wife. But we moved into the apartment we're in now a couple years ago we set it up so that my gaming setup is in one part of the living room (using VGA monitor). Now most of the time that I'm gaming she'll be in the same room as me reading or watching TV. I'm a good multi-tasker too, so often I'm listening to what she's watching while I'm playing games (and talking to you creeps).

[MrPopo]

I don't have a kid, but I'm pretty liberal with my cats. I don't mind them seeing some violence, but I am pretty strict about their exposure to sexual content.

You chase them out when it's alone time?

[Onikage]

Just to add my input. I really don't like playing violent games around my step-niece and nephew. However, I remember when I was three or four I'd watch my dad play Doom 95 on a Pentium 100. I've been playing M games without supervision since I was 5 or 6.

That said, I don't condone showing young children violent and explicit material of any kind. However, I don't think your child will turn into a deranged freak if they see you killing an alien or two.

My little sister used to love playing Doom when she was 5. My parents have never been any kind of strict when it comes to kids and videogame violence. And she's not any worse off for it now that she's 10, so I don't think violent games are really a problem for kids, so long as they know it's not to be done for real. Well, and so long as you don't let them see really extreme stuff, like RE4 or Manhunt.

I got Manhunt for Christmas when I was 9 years old. It was actually more enjoyable when I was a kid than now, because I found it more suspenseful at the time.
I'm glad that my parents never gave a shit about what I played.

[Arbitern1]

Very rare to see such ignorance, even online. I do not even see why someone with any kind of brain power would try to tell a parent how to interact with and raise their children.

If you really think you universally understand all kids and can tell people that are actually parents how to raise their kids, then you have a serious complex ignorance issue

I don't see what's so horrible about just being honest with your kids and teaching them the truth.

My parents raised me to be religious. They also taught me that sex is bad, cursing is bad, being gay is bad, etc. I was watching hardcore porn when I was around 11 years old but I always felt bad about it because I thought I was doing something wrong. One time my parents found out that I was looking at porn on the internet and scolded me. And despite being bisexual my whole life, thanks to my parents, I ended up suppressing my gay side until much later in life.

If my parents had cut the bullshit and raised me better, everything would have been better. Instead I had to hide shit from them. Parents and children need to be open and honest with each other.

You may think you are doing good by hiding sex and violence from kids, but you are actually doing harm. Kids are not stupid. If you do a good job explaining things to them, they can handle sex and violence.

LOL. Talk about some deep seated emotional bullshit. Nobody cares. Save yourself the embarrassment and don't post anything like this again.

[FerretGamer]

I don't have a kid, but I'm pretty liberal with my cats. I don't mind them seeing some violence, but I am pretty strict about their exposure to sexual content.



EDIT: But seriously, I used to feel guilty not spending as much time with my wife. But we moved into the apartment we're in now a couple years ago we set it up so that my gaming setup is in one part of the living room (using VGA monitor). Now most of the time that I'm gaming she'll be in the same room as me reading or watching TV. I'm a good multi-tasker too, so often I'm listening to what she's watching while I'm playing games (and talking to you creeps).

This is what I essentially do. It's learning to compromise and honestly that isn't even the correct choice of wording for that. I have a smaller LCD set up on our coffee table so that I can play one of the consoles when I feel like it. At the same time, I can be in the living room with my wife playing a videogame and she can either watch a movie on the bigger TV or do something else. Of course, I usually just end up playing with one of the handhelds and it doesn't bother me much. In the end, I'm lucky if I even get 2 hours of gametime in a day since I'd prefer actually spending that time with my wife.

[cityside75]

I love my 1,000+ videogame collection, but the happiness they give me doesn't even begin to compare with the feeling I get when my daughter tiptoes into our room and squeezes in between my wife and I in the middle of the night, or when watching my son laugh hysterically at some corny joke that everyone else has heard a million times before. Until you've been there, you just can't understand.

To the OP - What time do your kids go to bed? While it's not the solution for everyone, I find that I'm willing at times to sacrifice my own sleep for a few days to stay up a little later when I'm really enjoying a non-family friendly game. Once I've gotten it out of my system I work on catching up on my sleep.

[ZeroAX]

I don't have a kid, but I'm pretty liberal with my cats. I don't mind them seeing some violence, but I am pretty strict about their exposure to sexual content.

pf, American way of thinking