I am sick to death of Dr. Laura telling women that if their husbands play video games, they are behaving like little boys. Dr. Laura is like 60. There were no video games for her generation of men to play. I bet they watched a lot of sporting events on that new fangled television thing, though. Sure, there is a limit, a point where enough is too much, but just because an adult guy enjoys playing video games ...
Okay, maybe I'm overly sensitive to the topic because my husband makes video games and adult men are much more willing and capable of buying his games and thus supporting the industry that feeds my family. Perhaps it's because my husband plays video games (me too sometimes), but it's not as if watching TV, or playing golf, or getting drunk at the bar, or any of the other thousands of ways men relax are any better or worse. Well, some ways might be worse...
A woman called in today to complain about her husband's emerging addiction to World Of Warcraft. Dr. Laura said, when he gets on the computer, she ought to hop on his lap and make out with him.
That's what I do.
Unless I want him to play video games for a while. Like I said, he's just relaxing; it's a hobby. Granted, painting or building those tiny ships in a bottles produce some tangible proof that time was spent doing something, but is that necessary?
If you REALLY want his attention, give him something worthwhile to pay attention to. Is a naggy wife telling him for the 20th time to take out the trash gonna entice him away from Laura Croft? I'm not saying it'll be easy, but really, you, smelling good and looking like your gonna make him happy ... that should do it. Unless you really did marry a man-boy, in which case, you should have followed the firat part of Dr. Laura's marriage advice: Choose wisely; treat kindly. One more note: make sure the lap sitting is not just a ploy or it'll only work once ... and they'll pout about it for days! DAYS, I tell you!
Sometimes, once in a while, I have things to do other than be the center of attention. You see, I used to be one of those girls with no personal hobbies or interests: I'd given them all up when I got married. My poor husband was responsible to keep me happy; I forgot how to do it myself. Or, if I did want to do something I liked, I expected him to do it, too. I'm getting better ...
Moderation in all things, boys and girls. Jobs must be held down, kids need attention, housework needs to be done, but men are people, too (shocking, huh), and people need things they can just do by themselves because they enjoy it, even if it's not a productive use of time, even if the laundry isn't put away (cuz that's not really his job, though it'd be really nice if he WANTED to put the laundry away for me, but I can see how video games might be funner).
Video game time is okay.
So says me.
Now, husband dear, fetch me that Rock Band game. And don't throw this post in my face after you've been up playing until 3am and want to sleep in on Saturday morning instead of eating breakfast with the family and helping out with Saturday Family House Cleaning. There was a caveat.
***Now tell me, is it just me or is everyone having spell check problems and picture uploading issues??? Freaking technology!
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Excellent and right-on. Thank you! I posted about the same thing:
http://tunasafedolphin.blogspot.com/2008/02/some-real-men-play-video-games.html
So your husband makes video games? That is really interesting. Does he design them? Does he bring home the prototypes/beta forms for you to play/test? That would be really cool.
I completely agree with you that video games are a harmless hobby/stress reliever--plus they are a lot less expensive that playing a round of golf or going to a bar.
Plus, there is now the Wii (though I have not played it) that is supposed to let people get exercise while playing. If that's not smart for kids, what is?
I suppose my view of this question is the same I have about diets. It's not what you eat, it's what you don't eat. So in this case, it's not what you do when you play video games, it's what you don't do. And since I don't do them (for no other reason than the lack of interest to get involved), I see my husband disappear into a screen nearly every hour that he is at home. During that time, he doesn't see anything, he doesn't hear anything and he doesn't know anything that is going on around him. I think all of us, no matter where we bury ourselves, have to be careful to wake up, or we miss it all. We miss every bit of our lives. And all we get is version 1.0.
Greg write engines for computer games right now, the stuff that tells the computer how to do what it does. He doesn't bring home incomplete games, there are security issues, but I've gone in and seen games he's working on in progress, played on the little PSP, seen how groovy they are. Plus it takes quite a while to make a game so it's few and far between. And his boss gave us a WII for his bonus last year so that was really really cool - it's my favorite game console ever.
I think Karen has a great point - screens are my husbands life, all day at work, when he's working on finances, watching movies or TV, my 5 yr old's favorite thing is to play video games with dad. Greg also reads a lot and plays guitar to kill a spare minute ... I shouldn't talk about him all, I feel gossipy - but, when you have small kids or any kids, you connect better when the distractions are off and gone, when you're on the floor, at their level, and not sitting up on the couch away .. I think I'll go ahead and blog on that theory today.
But yes, Americans, and maybe men the most, seem to be distracting themselves away from their lives and failing to notice it is life.
And they'd better continue doing it too or I'm out of a job!!!
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