Parents and banned video-game related stories?

[dsheinem]

I remember when NES games - specifically RPGs - were grouped in with the "Satanic influence" paranoia about much of pop culture in the mid 1980s. It was a wild time, for sure. My parents thus monitored any games I wanted to play and forbid anything that looked like/sounded like Dungeons and Dragons to be played in the house. They asked me to use good judgement when playing at others' houses, too.

I also remember when fighting games started getting popular that my parents had a rule that I couldn't have my characters fight any of the women, because violence against women was bad. So my brother and I could only pick male fighters (no Chun Li or Sonya) and I had to play arcade mode when the folks weren't looking.

All of these rules were dropped sometime in middle school/high school as that paranoia dropped out of vogue and my parents accepted that my behavior wouldn't be so directly influenced by games.

I wish I could find some of those old Christian magazine articles about the dangers of the NES - would be a hoot to read over now

[BogusMeatFactory]

I never had an intervention or a banned video game scenario, but my oldest brother did. When my brother was a teenager, he worked at a Ponderosa Steakhouse as a waiter. Every paycheck he received went directly to videogames. Sega Genesis, Sega CD and PC. My parents were so upset that they took the consoles and computer and had an unplugged month, where we couldn't play games at all. I was just a bystander in the situation and was happy with my books and action figures, since he was drastically older than I was.

After that, things didn't change much. His spending went to Saturn, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox and more PC games. Oh man memories!

[Hatta]

My own story relating to this is when my dad forbade me from buying Phantasmagoria at the age of 15. I was a huge Sierra fan at that point, and still am. I couldn't figure out his objection. I asked him straight up what bad things he thought would happen. He had no answer, and fell back on the "I'm the dad" line. I lost a lot of respect for him that day, and I still don't understand wtf he was thinking. Honestly, I'm still insulted about it, but since that was his biggest mistake as a parent I can't complain too much.

I don't think censorship is ever the answer for parents. Your job as a parent is to assist your child in experiencing the world and making sense of it. Not to shield them from the world. And pulling rank is almost never appropriate either. It either teaches your children to mindlessly respect authority, which is the cause of most of the world's problems, or it makes them resent you. Explain things to your children, that's how they learn. And let them counter your arguments with their own arguments, you might learn something too. Parents claim to love their children, but all too often they don't even seem to respect them.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I don't think censorship is ever the answer for parents. Your job as a parent is to assist your child in experiencing the world and making sense of it. Not to shield them from the world. And pulling rank is almost never appropriate either. It either teaches your children to mindlessly respect authority, which is the cause of most of the world's problems, or it makes them resent you. Explain things to your children, that's how they learn. And let them counter your arguments with their own arguments, you might learn something too. Parents claim to love their children, but all too often they don't even seem to respect them.

This is a good point. My wife's brother, who is 10 is heavy into the internet right now. His family gives him unrestrained access to everything the internet has, good or bad. He is an awesome kid and can tell the difference between right and wrong, but I have to guide him about his tastes. He stumbles on tons of rape jokes from popular Youtube celebrities and I make sure to stand as a role model for him by outright telling him that it is something you do not make fun of. He looks up to me and I am really trying to convey a strong, positive mindset so that, when he gets older and finds some of the even darker sides of the internet, that he knows to just go somewhere else.

I can't wait to have kids and to talk to them and experience the internet and gaming in fun and interactive, hands-on ways.

[AppleQueso]

I don't think censorship is ever the answer for parents. Your job as a parent is to assist your child in experiencing the world and making sense of it. Not to shield them from the world. And pulling rank is almost never appropriate either. It either teaches your children to mindlessly respect authority, which is the cause of most of the world's problems, or it makes them resent you. Explain things to your children, that's how they learn. And let them counter your arguments with their own arguments, you might learn something too. Parents claim to love their children, but all too often they don't even seem to respect them.

Sadly, the parents that take this approach are blasted and called terrible parents when they allow their kid to play some game outside of their ESRB age group.

[Retrodude]

Sadly, the parents that take this approach are blasted and called terrible parents when they allow their kid to play some game outside of their ESRB age group.

Too true. My mom gave me a lot of freedom growing up and let me make my own mistakes and learn from them and I think I turned out a better person for it. These days, though, that kind of hands-off parenting is frowned upon in favor of controlling your children to an extreme and allowing them little, if any, freedom at all. Ironically, that approach makes kids more likely to rebel and lash out. I was never a rebellious kid because I never had a reason to be, but I shudder to think how my life might have been different if I'd been born ten years later.

[Reprise]

I was told by my parents they would buy my brother and I a Mega Drive to share and then that would be it; they would never buy us another games system or console (as they were a "waste of money.")

I nagged them for years for various systems (I wanted a Saturn, an N64 etc), but one console I nagged them the most for, was the GameBoy. When the GameBoy Color was announced, I wanted one. My mum eventually said "if you want one, you have to save up for it yourself" not expecting me to actually do that (I was 10 years old when it came out), but that's what I did... And then again with the Dreamcast and the Gamecube and every system I've ever owned.

My parents also used to have a rule where I could only play on the Mega Drive for a few hours a week. I can't remember the exact rules, but I could only play at a certain time.

[Xeogred]

Yeah there needs to be some middle ground when it comes to parenting. Perhaps a setup similar to how my growing up was, a strict parent, and an easygoing one... things would clash and balance out in the end haha. The religious stuff I don't always love looking back on, but most of the things my dad did I respect for the most part, as I feel like he gave me respect himself, good things to live by (work to earn it, and such)... usually haha. Then like I said, 18 and up, he's definitely a stern one on the "learn from your own mistakes" belief. Which can be good and bad at times too I guess, but that 180 turn he did the day I turned 18, gave it an even bigger impact and felt amazing. He instantly gave me respect and acknowledgment. A signal that, while I thought it was tough being a kid at times, the easy days were over and life was only going to get tougher.

Similar to the satanic thing ds mentioned, was "evolution" some kind of big deal in the 90's as well? I wasn't allowed to watch X-Men back then when it was new, and then later Pokemon became a heated topic at church. Hilarious stuff, I think my parents just stopped caring about this kind of crap a few years later though.

Only card game I ever got into was the Star Wars one, but yeah I did manage to somehow smuggle some Pokemon cards at times. And then I'd trade them to some friends for N64 games. I couldn't believe people would go with that, but I wasn't about to stop them. Kind of like how the mint condition black label release of FFVII that I've had forever now, I just traded a random skateboard to one of my friends for it. lol

Also funny how most of us seem to have history growing up with the violent controversial games, and we're totally fine! (mostly I assume? Speaking for myself... haha). I myself remember going to my neighbors to play Doom all the time, back in kindergarten. I actually thought the dead imps looked hilarious at the time, because I thought they were peeing blood (now that sounds frightening...), but yeah I played most of them myself, Mortal Kombat, etc.

Considering how much of a zealot my dad was growing up, it is really funny to think he helped me beat Actraiser back then, which is like as heavy as you can get on "God stuff" on the SNES. I couldn't read everything so he read the text while I played, and we finished it. He and one of his friends also loved Super Ghouls and Ghosts, which definitely has some grotesque levels that my friends and I used to joke were "satanic" lol.

I don't think I ever had time limits myself, that I can remember. But I guess like we were saying recently in the random thoughts thread, I had a fair balance and got outside a lot too in grade school lol. That and I'm sure there were a few entire summers were I was grounded from videogames, so I had to make due with other stuff.

[TheGregzilla]

I was lucky enough that my parents didnt really pay any attention to what games I bought. If the cashier would comment about it, my mom would look at me and ask if I thought I should be playing the game. I of course always said yes, and got the game. Simple as that, Although I do recall sometimes getting angry and yelling at games, at which point my parents would take them for a few hours until I calmed down.

[deathclaw]

My own story relating to this is when my dad forbade me from buying Phantasmagoria at the age of 15. I was a huge Sierra fan at that point, and still am. I couldn't figure out his objection. I asked him straight up what bad things he thought would happen. He had no answer, and fell back on the "I'm the dad" line. I lost a lot of respect for him that day, and I still don't understand wtf he was thinking. Honestly, I'm still insulted about it, but since that was his biggest mistake as a parent I can't complain too much.

I don't think censorship is ever the answer for parents. Your job as a parent is to assist your child in experiencing the world and making sense of it. Not to shield them from the world. And pulling rank is almost never appropriate either. It either teaches your children to mindlessly respect authority, which is the cause of most of the world's problems, or it makes them resent you. Explain things to your children, that's how they learn. And let them counter your arguments with their own arguments, you might learn something too. Parents claim to love their children, but all too often they don't even seem to respect them.

Wow, this is so awesome. I would never expect to find something like this here. Teaching children that obedience is virtue is one of the worst things in this world.