Early on in my parenting travels, I was a total anti-video game guy. A staunch opponent. Of course, these feelings were not due to a lingering bitterness because growing up I was the worst Pac-Man player in my town. No, I just didn’t want my kids sitting idly for hours on end, ruled by a screen, twitching, stagnating, drooling. But then came the Wii.

My kids quickly honed their desire for the Wii. The normal parenting move of switching one toy for another did not work with this alluring technology, this attractive nuisance. As a family, we still enjoyed the great Cranium board games. We still played Chutes & Ladders, Scrabble, Sorry, and Checkers. But beneath their smiles, they wanted that Wii too.

The external pressure grew. We became one of the last neighborhood video game holdouts. I noticed that kid conversations around the playground were about these games. I began to wonder if my kids might be missing something important because they weren’t participating.

You’re thinking of me as spineless bandwagoner. You’re thinking of me as weak conformist. Maybe you’re just thinking of me as devoid of principles.

But this was no small matter. Where do you draw the line on parental decisions like this? Where do your core philosophies and values end and your own prejudices and opinions begin? On some things you shouldn’t cave for anything. Holding the line on foundational values might be a good way to help your kids avoid being pressured into doing drugs or launching boulders at other people’s houses. But I realized the Wii wasn’t in the drug/boulders category, and I wondered when we reach the point where our vehemently clinging to our opinions becomes an unjustifiable obstruction to our kids’ lives.

You enter the parental game trained mainly by your experiences on the other end of it: Being a child. I don’t think it’s news that that is inadequate training, especially for those of us whose upbringings were a little challenged.

So we work through the debris of the past and come into being parents with a kind of weird list of what must happen and what we won’t allow: this is a good dream for you to have; this is verboten; that kind of kid makes a bad friend; you want to have this kind of job; etc.

Then our kids come bursting on the scene, and they make a mess of it all. And soon after that, these friends of theirs start popping up and really foul up our plans.

So my stubbornness about the evils of the Wii and video games kept being contrasted with an uncooperative reality. I went to a Fourth of July party during which twenty people ranging in age from four to 45 played Rock Band. Kids and adults banging out “Mississippi Queen” and having a blast. Just like the darn advertising. I also noticed my kids’ video-game-playing friends, all relatively upstanding citizens for the sub-10-year-old set who do well in school, don’t drink too much soda, and brush their teeth most nights, were enjoying the Wii and also having these involved, interesting conversations with each other about their gaming adventures.

This time of reflection ventured into holiday gift season. The Wii and its components ruled the lists. My internal arguments began to seem petty, maybe shallow. So we gave some advice to Santa and in came the Wii.

We set it up, and right away my two boys spent a long afternoon in the front room playing. Just like I thought! I came in, almost teary, screwdriver in hand, to rescue them. How had I been so short-sighted?

But as I rounded the corner, what did I hear? I heard stomping. I heard a weird kind of problem-solving, strategically-oriented argot. I heard laughing.

I peeked around the corner. What did I see? The boys were bouncing into each other deliriously, jumping around the room. They were sweating, actually breathing hard. They were scheming and working together to confront — I don’t know what was going on on the screen, but they were dealing with it. Together. And they were laughing. Together. Switching controllers. Guiding each other through the problems of the to-me-still-bewildering world of Mario. I dropped my screwdriver. All would be well.

So time has passed. The Wii has evolved. They haven’t graduated to the hard video game stuff yet; they play Lego Star Wars and Batman and sports games. They still even play the core Wii games, like that battle of the tanks. Sure they have their occasional fight. The Wii remote becomes a projectile sometimes. But mainly they spend a lot of time together as brothers having fun.

Watching them, I realize this is what I want out of their activities. If they spent an afternoon learning how to drub each other into financial destitution — meaning playing Monopoly — I would feel I had significantly strengthened my application for Father of the Year. Yet here they were, playing together, in tandem, actively and with engagement.

And then there are those calf muscles.

My little guy, the six-year-old, has calves that would make a bodybuilder proud (see above for unPhotoshopped graphical proof). Sure, he plays a few youth sports. He might have some genes on his side (on his mother’s side, of course). But those calves were built by the Wii. During the most routine Wii game, he bounces up and down on his toes, sometimes for an hour straight. Like most of his activities, we have not figured out why he does this, but he associates motion of the game with his own physical motion.

So in the end I made peace with video games. My kids use this electronic toy to interact, laugh, problem solve, and even get some serious exercise. I still love those classic board games, but, unless you’re playing the full-contact version, even Parcheesi can’t promise all that.

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Scott Warnock

Scott Warnock is a writer and teacher who lives in South Jersey. He is a professor of English at Drexel University, where he is also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences. Father of three and husband of one, Scott is president of a local high school education foundation and spent many years coaching youth sports.

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Tags: games, virtual children by Scott Warnock // 3 Comments »