Happy Father's Day - Early
He Didn’t Arrive With Video Games: The Story of Our True Gamer Dad.
By Jennifer Shaw
When I met my husband, I knew he was a gamer: video games, RPGs, classic board games. I thought it was cute. I encouraged it. It was an endearing quirk, this love of games.
Who wants to make and raise children with a partner with no ability to lose himself in play? This is great.
I wanted to spend my life with the man, I wanted him to help raise my son, and so when he moved in, I knew to some extent I would have to love the tangled miles of controller cords and the speaker wire lines all over my living room walls. We talked about it for weeks before – not the moving in but the great presence of the game.
I don’t think you can handle my video games.
And so he arrived without them. And weeks passed. All of his smelly man stuff was scattered around the house. There were the speaker wires, the TV looming over my one year-old son like Ragnarok But no system. Then, in week four, it arrived.
My Duck Hunt fantasies vanished.
There were hours of machine guns in my living room. Bomb blasts kept me up late at night. And though it was amusing to watch him either jumping around cussing General RAMM after the kids went to bed or breaking into a concentrated sweat under the careful gaze of my son, I was so not prepared.
And then: will you play with me? I thought of my adolescent love affair with Mario and my college fling with Grand Theft Auto. I have yet to participate. But my son knows about the game. He watches his dad play Oblivion. Davrik’s your dude, Dad. If I didn’t shake them both out of their pixilated comas, they would spend entire days together, picking through goblin-ridden villages, bow and arrow at-the-ready.
A marriage, one daughter, hours of games and three years later, the man is still the best gamer and best dad I know. We talk about purchasing systems like people talk about purchasing cars. It is dinner table talk. He relentlessly keeps me informed about everything from patches to game releases to mini-dramas unfolding with gaming buddies.
Within a month of our daughter’s birth, he photographed her on her prettiest pink blanket with a 360 headset and controller. Months later, the only way she falls asleep is in the roar of the most coveted release, calmed by the invariable bounce of his arms as he pounds buttons. A concerned wife – concerned for the weekly video game quota not met – asks, Oh, honey, why don’t you put her down?
True gamer answer: But I like holding her like this.
So they sit together. And watching this most intimate moment, I’m sure our children will only grow in the arms of our gamer dad, the Frank West of our family, our lives. After much transition, understanding and eventual admiration, he just might get me in to run a level or two at his side.
Good game, guys.
(Sumbitted in this posted and shortened version on June 5th to Xbox Live's contest for Gamer Dad of the Year).
By Jennifer Shaw
When I met my husband, I knew he was a gamer: video games, RPGs, classic board games. I thought it was cute. I encouraged it. It was an endearing quirk, this love of games.
Who wants to make and raise children with a partner with no ability to lose himself in play? This is great.
I wanted to spend my life with the man, I wanted him to help raise my son, and so when he moved in, I knew to some extent I would have to love the tangled miles of controller cords and the speaker wire lines all over my living room walls. We talked about it for weeks before – not the moving in but the great presence of the game.
I don’t think you can handle my video games.
And so he arrived without them. And weeks passed. All of his smelly man stuff was scattered around the house. There were the speaker wires, the TV looming over my one year-old son like Ragnarok But no system. Then, in week four, it arrived.
My Duck Hunt fantasies vanished.
There were hours of machine guns in my living room. Bomb blasts kept me up late at night. And though it was amusing to watch him either jumping around cussing General RAMM after the kids went to bed or breaking into a concentrated sweat under the careful gaze of my son, I was so not prepared.
And then: will you play with me? I thought of my adolescent love affair with Mario and my college fling with Grand Theft Auto. I have yet to participate. But my son knows about the game. He watches his dad play Oblivion. Davrik’s your dude, Dad. If I didn’t shake them both out of their pixilated comas, they would spend entire days together, picking through goblin-ridden villages, bow and arrow at-the-ready.
A marriage, one daughter, hours of games and three years later, the man is still the best gamer and best dad I know. We talk about purchasing systems like people talk about purchasing cars. It is dinner table talk. He relentlessly keeps me informed about everything from patches to game releases to mini-dramas unfolding with gaming buddies.
Within a month of our daughter’s birth, he photographed her on her prettiest pink blanket with a 360 headset and controller. Months later, the only way she falls asleep is in the roar of the most coveted release, calmed by the invariable bounce of his arms as he pounds buttons. A concerned wife – concerned for the weekly video game quota not met – asks, Oh, honey, why don’t you put her down?
True gamer answer: But I like holding her like this.
So they sit together. And watching this most intimate moment, I’m sure our children will only grow in the arms of our gamer dad, the Frank West of our family, our lives. After much transition, understanding and eventual admiration, he just might get me in to run a level or two at his side.
Good game, guys.
(Sumbitted in this posted and shortened version on June 5th to Xbox Live's contest for Gamer Dad of the Year).
posted by J.Helen Shaw at 6:23 PM
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