Gaming

Gaming. A hobby started a lifetime ago around age...5? I think that is when I got my first gaming console. The classic, Nintendo Entertainment System aka the NES. Horrible square controller and all. I used to play so many hours a day, my fingers got blisters.  Still, I played on because I was a child and it was freakin awesome!

Gaming time was essentially carte blanche in my house growing up. As long as school work was done, and my grades didn't slip, nobody questioned me playing video games for literal hours on end. This has created quite an interesting situation now that I'm a parent. I have 4 kids: A, 2 in October; L, just turned 5; O, 8 in October; and C, 11 in December. The three older kids C, O, & L, all play video games but nobody is more like me than O.  That child would play video games sun up to sun down if you let them. For the record, we don't. But every day when it hits "video game time", I'm drawn back to my youth when I'd start playing at 7am and finish around 2 or 3am the next morning. Seriously, it was a bit over the top. I'll never forget the infamous "Summer of VII" and "the Brew"  - shout out to my bud Alex!

Will the kids get a chance to experience something like that?  At the moment, absolutely not with limited video game time.  As they get older, I'm sure that will change. But will the ever get unlimited? Should they? Throwing out the science and making a gut call, I think they should. Unbeknownst to me video games helped me cope with the world around me by disappearing into a new one. It provided a sense of control in life that looking back, I never had. Not that I couldn't control my own destiny, I just....didn't. I'm sure my life would have come out differently, but I can't say for certain it would've been for the better.