Today is the first day back to school for my son. His last year in Junior High! I spent quite awhile getting him registered this morning, he changed schools this year. The woman registering him told us he had classes that were in outside units wanting to just let him find them himself. Um, where outside? Oh, he can just look around, was the answer. Heck, I'm 32 and I still would have wanted to be shown where the hell they were. I told her this was unacceptable and someone, be it the principal, her, the teacher next door- someone- would show him where to go or I wasn't leaving. Do you understand? 'Yes, mam!'
I suppose you could say I'm sort of an imposing person these days. When I was my sons age, much like him, I was very shy and scared to ask for anything. While he isn't as shy as I was, I understand being shy. I had a rough childhood at times, which made me probably more introverted than most kids. I remember being too shy to ask for things and have my brother ask. To this day I'm making up for lost time on being assertive- ha!
Anyhow, enough about my childhood. I am not a person to take no for an answer if I don't have to. It made me think of being a gaming parent. How? When I mention I have a kid most people are like aww how old is he? When I mention he is in his early teens it's generally thought of oh he's old enough to take care of himself. Just because a kid is old enough to function mostly with out parental guidance doesn't mean I get to be any less of a parent.
When I was a younger gamer I would not even bother raiding, though I wanted to. I did at one point and it was too much a strain and resolved only to do so on weekends or late in the evenings after he was in bed. Even now telling friends 'AFK a min to tell my son goodnight", gets: 'Isn't he like 15?' as a reaction. 14 actually, and that doesn't mean I can't hug him goodnight and make sure he goes off to bed. Trust me, teenagers will try to stay up as late as possible if you don't watch them!
Most of my gaming friends don't have kids. I think I currently have one who has a child and she isn't even gaming much these days. So it's really something that a lot of people don't understand. Sorry guys I need to log to make supper, it has to be done. I have to make sure homework is done. If I didn't I wouldn't feel like a decent human being.
I think the idea of gaming with others, as in raiding and grouping, scares off a lot of gaming parents. People get upset if you have to afk. Me, I afk if my dog needs to go out, my world doesn't stop when I log in. People have a hard time understanding that though. But I'm not one to make people wait around on a regular basis. This most often happens on raids that take several hours. In our current guild the hours picked were not of my choice but I try to make it work.
For years I was a single mom, the only parent my son ever knew. People have different reasons why they do the things as they do. Maybe I'm a little over protective at times, other times his friends think I'm the worlds coolest mom. Let me be a mom as long as I can! Remember we don't always know as much as we think about the people behind our friend's toons.
So next time you're gaming and someone has to tuck the little one in or make sure the kid isn't setting the house on fire- Give them a break! It's a lot of work being a parent, we already get enough sulky answers as it is!
-kaozz
It blows me away today how un professional and non helpful many people are that are there to help and DO their jobs. Sometimes the attitude too. You know sometimes the good old days were in many ways much better.
ReplyDeleteYep, rude just no cares. 'Not my kid, I don't care if they get lost of upset.'
ReplyDeleteI saw several lost kids today and felt bad for them- They were pointed in a direction and told to get a map.
It must be- It's too hard to get off your ass and do your job- Day.
As the author of the "hes 15 comment" I want to say that I was trying to be funny a bit wich failed :(
ReplyDeleteI don't have kids so please forgive in advance my future slip-ups. One thing I promess tough is to never give you trouble because of mom stuff. Kids > Games is something I not only understand but that I believe to be normal and healhy. I may however try to say something funny, please feel free to call me a nub then.
I've always been surprised by parents raiding 5 days a weeks with toddlers around, simply cannot understand how they can do both.
Forgot to add that I was a very independent kid by the age of 12. If ever my parents would try to be "parents" I'd get crazy mad. I wanted to do stuff on my own. My mom and I add a deal where as long as I could keep good grade she wasn't allowed to check up on homeworks.
ReplyDeleteOf course growing up I realized later they still found ways to check up on me:) Heck, I still get intorragated every time my mom calls:P
Oh it wasn't directed at you!! You're not the only person to say that lol, I do get it a lot. Other friends tease me about logging to get him off to bed. I think what really set me off today was how the school just wanted to throw him into things carelessly.
ReplyDeleteHe cooks for himself sometimes and helps around the house a lot but he is still pretty much a big kid. He's very quiet and easy though.
My husband says I baby him, I suppose I do at times. Dan gives me shit about it too lol.
I will say this. I suppose I want him to be a kid as long as he can. Growing up too fast isn't always good for some kids. It wasn't for me. I'm still a 'kid' in many ways haha. I had to get rid of some of my My Little Ponies last year... I kept two though!
I would have been upset too, good for you standing your ground and making sure that he got where he was supposed to go.
ReplyDeleteRe: Taking time away for family
Thankfully, I didn't get that too much. The majority of the guilds I was part of were older gamers, and they had families. Before I left I did join a local guild with Pouncealot, most of them although older didn't have children, or their children lived on their own. I couldn't attend a lot of the in-game events since that was the time I normally spent with my daughter.
My guild is all friends right now so it's not an issue they just like to tease me lol.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I've been playing MMO games since he was four so it is much easier now ten years later! I've heard positive and negative things over the years and I've passed up things playing casually for a long time.
I still pass up a lot of raids just because of amount of time I don't want to spend on it these days. Pug raids that is, while my husband can sit there I can't do it as often. I suppose over the years it's sort of stuck with me not to spend too much time at once.