Friday Open Thread: parenting and videogames
As I had alluded to earlier this week in a comment, I had gotten tangled up in an argument on another forum regarding what I saw as a feminist-flavored relationship issue involving parenting, parenting rights, and in this particular instance, videogames.
Original post (not me, natch):
A couple of months ago I bought my 6 and 9 year olds a Wii. I did not discuss this with my wife, correctly assuming that asking forgiveness would be preferable to asking permission. In addition to Wii Sports I bought them Mario Party 8. Not surprisingly, they love it, and do what kids do, want to play it all the time. My wife is fearful gaming-induced brain rot and is threatening to severely restrict their Wii time, like only on weekends. I am looking for some content that will mitigate her fear and help my kids keep some Wii time. Big Brain Academy is the obvious choice, but I don’t know if it’s any good. Other titles to check out would be appreciated.
Let me also state I’m not totally opposed to her stance- we actually make them go outside and play- but it is a matter of degree. I work pretty long hours during the week and get to spend more time with them on the weekends, so having them waiting all week to play on the Wii on Saturday and Sunday when I can do more stuff with them is not a great solution either.
A lot of people pointed out that it was wrong to go behind his wife’s back on this purchase, but I took it up a notch:
Well, I really don’t appreciate that you’re basically setting up your wife to be the badguy here. Daddy’s the one who’s nice and buys us videogames, and Mommy’s the killjoy making it hard for Daddy to be nice to us. I’m sure that’s not what you mean to be saying, but that’s what the kids are learning, I’m sure. Especially since you knew going in that she would not want to get a game console, and bought one anyway… it just shows a serious lack of respect for your wife’s feelings and role as a parent.
I don’t really agree with her regarding the brain rotting aspects of videogames, but there are ways to win that argument without going behind her back.
I then went on to say that if the kids brains are indeed “rotting,” the responsibility to get them back on course should lie with him, as he was the one who brought the system home and the wife doesn’t want anything to do with it.
Then I recommended some games.
Naturally, this caused a bunch of people to start arguing that I wasn’t talking about equality, that I was trashing on this guy and, once someone pointed out that I was making feminist arguments, a whole slew of antifeminist trolls showed up to pretend like I was yelling about the phallo-centric patriarchy and generally acting like anxious males but I digress.
After the scuffle degenerated to the point where I was being accused of being a troll, and bowing out because other people were obviously trolling me (but they were just being rational, y’see), the OP did come back and explain that the kids are smart as a ducks and doing awesome in school and doing all sorts of after school sports and oh… the wife actually likes the Wii and plays it herself, he was just being hyperbolic to be funny. Which is wonderful news for his family but doesn’t really change the fact that his hyperbolic self was being a dick and there were people lining up to either defend him or demand that I don’t make a big deal about it because I’m just being a dour-faced feminist and why can’t the wife just roll over on this one.
Just had to get that off my chest. It’s been an obnoxious week. So the topic for the thread is:
If one partner finds themselves with the lion’s share of the child-rearing (and this goes for SAHD’s too) where the other partner works late and is effectively only seeing the kids on the weekends, and they don’t want item X brought into the home because they know that it will just make more work for them and generally increase the difficulty in rearing the children–how much veto power should they be allowed to exercise on item X? This goes not just for videogames but things like big hairy dogs, toy guns, etc. This is assuming that the marriage is not broken and partners have good communication and can articulate their feelings and aren’t sneaking around behind each other’s back.
Now if we want to get really technical, I point you to yesterday’s post at Pandagon about a dad currently in a struggle with his ex-wife about their daughter’s extreme religious upbringing. I find myself siding with the dad here — not because I’m a rabid atheist (I am in fact a Christian), but because from the sounds of it this church is incredibly misogynist and leaving his daughter to be indoctrinated in their harmful rhetoric is borderline child abuse.
What about hunting? What about diet?
I got pretty passionate about the original thread not necessarily because it’s another case of people without kids telling people with kids what to do — it’s because I saw such a gross inequity in the relationship between the husband in the wife.
What do you think?
October 5th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I do think couples need to work these kinds of things out. Maybe start smaller and test how the kids get along with something less major than a whole Wii to themselves and all that. Personally, I think the right games are very helpful and educational. I won’t get into a list in this post, as I haven’t the time or inclination.
Now to the second point. It always seems to me that those with extreme views are quick to jump on moderates and label them as the extremists as early in the arguement as possible; the classic “Well, you agree with us, or you’re with the terrorists!” bit. Right thinking will be rewarded, wrong thinking will be punished.
People who think in absolutes tend to be rather set in their ways and if you do not agree with them, you are the enemy. There is no compromise, no negotiation, no discussion. And like every good little nazi before them; they’re going to squash your and your ideas for being different.
END RANT
October 5th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Yes, but that doesn’t address the question — vaguely waving your hand and say that parents need to “work it out” isn’t helpful when parent A is deadset against something and parent B is in favor of something. And if one parent has more of a role in the day-to-day rearing of a child and that something in question is seen as a big obstacle in their task … does the parent in question have a right to put their foot down and say “absolutely not.” ?
October 5th, 2007 at 11:23 am
So there are two parents, both involved and concerned, and one wants to make one-sided, absolute decisions about the kids? If she wants her husband more involved and taking more responsibility, that would probably be a good way of discouraging him and reinforcing the view that fathers are secondary parents.
It shouldn’t be too hard to show that games can be fun and educational, and that the bias against games is likely based on media scaremongering. If one parents can’t see that, well then you’d have a problem. It would be a bit like one parents not wanting the kids playing with the foreign kids next door, because of something racist he or she has heard.
Since when does everything a child does have to serve some ultimate purpose of bettering them and preparing them for the future? I wasted a lot of my childhood on things that had no immediately obvious purpose and I didn’t turn out bad. The same goes for most of my friends.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Again–you’re not answering the question at hand. I’ve ALREADY STATED that I disagree with the mother’s POV.
However, the OP states that the kids were obsessing about the system, and we shouldn’t kid ourselves about what that means — if a kid is obsessed with something, it means that they’re going to make themselves a pain in the ass when they can’t be with it. If the mom gets the kids home from daycare and says “OK, now sit down and do your homework” and they start whining and throwing temper tantrums because they want to play the Wii, and the husband isn’t home until the kids are about to go to bed to deal with it, how is it fair for him to make her job that much more difficult? Particularly when you toss out the “Well, when I have some time to be with the kids on the weekend I don’t want them playing the Wii” — how, exactly, is that not a spectacular show of selfish dipshittery?
My solution to the problem would have been to get the kids the game system at the start of the summer vacation and let themselves get it out of their system when they didn’t have an obligation to their schoolwork, and until you’re satisfied that they’re not looking at the system as some sort of inalienable right, limit the new games you get for them to holiday breaks. But the point of THIS thread isn’t about how to convince the mom to ease up and let the kids play the Wii. The point of the thread is if the responsibilities of day-to-day childrearing falls inequitably on one parent over the other (which is not to say that this wasn’t the arrangement), should that parent be allowed to have a greater say in how the children are going to be reared since they have to do the nitty gritty work?
Or, to put it another way, at one point the husband and I were discussing floor mops. Because we are very exciting people. He explained that he did not like sponge mops, and would rather get one of the traditional janitorial rope-mops. I explained that if he did that, he could be responsible for all of the mopping from here on out as I refused to use something that is such a pain in the ass (we still have a sponge mop and we both mop). Now, a person can’t very well refuse to raise their children (well, and not be an asshole), but the point is more or less the same.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Sure, Id say thats pretty damn fair if you ask me. Im not a parent, so I hardly speak from experience, but I can see that kind of thing will mess things up for whoever is actually doing the work of taking care of the kids. It sounds like this guy didnt put much thought into what he was doing other than that his kids would love the new Wii he bought them. I dont suppose thats too bad a sentiment, but it sounds as if he didnt give one thought to how it would affect his kids other than in that specific way.
And Im only just taking into account how he phrased the post, not to mention completely going over his wife’s head in buying the Wii. Basically Im saying that I would imagine theres a right way and a wrong way to “treat” your kids, and I doubt that his was the smartest way to go about it. Not only because its easy to want to just play games instead of having to do boring stuff, like chores, homework etc (and boy do I know about that). Also because I definitely think the decision should have been made a large part from the mother (or the one doing the childcare in a different situation).
I mean, it sure is nice to see he gave some consideration to how restricting playing the Wii to the weekends (which Im sure everyone will agree is the “carefree” time of the week) would affect his time with the kids. It’s a shame he didn’t think about how unrestricted playing of the Wii will most likely fuck up the mothers “time” (much of which I imagine wont be fun) with the kids on weekdays. Sounds to me like he made a very selfish decision. Sure the kids are happy, but that isnt always a good thing, Ill bet.
I 100% agree that the primary carer should make this decision. Shit, if he had talked it over with his wife instead of jumping the gun, I bet there was a good chance she may agreed to buy it anyway, maybe with a little persuasion (taking into account her “brain rot” feelings). Only she probably would have had a better idea of when to get it, and how to let the kids play it (like you suggested MPG, for example, holidays are full of free time). All in all, Id say that was probably a bad move as a parent, and definitely a bad move as a husband.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Hmm…I thought I spoke directly to your original complaint, MP; that the two parents need to work something out rather than one exercising a unilateral decision, particularly one that leaves an inequitable situation and on that one parent knows the other will be greatly stressed over. This is not hand waving; this is how *I* feel it should be approached. Even if you do go with letting them get the Wii for the summer; that should *still* be something the parents agree to, not something one parent does over the other.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
But when one person is 100% in favor of something and another is 100% opposed to something, how can anything BUT a unilateral decision be made by one person or the other?
October 5th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I’m with Funiculus on this. We’re talking about children, not dirty floors or some other practical chore. Vetoing your SO’s decisions might work for cleaning, but not the kids. If parents feel the need to have votes proportional to some measurement of how much they care about the children, maybe that’s where to start. I’m not a parent either, but I wouldn’t want to be one if I couldn’t share equal responsibility and trust in matters concerning the kids or our relationship.
October 5th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
It’s not about 100% one way or the other; it’s about some form of compromise and understanding as is virtually every issue in a relationship. Even if one of them were to agree to a 100% decision one way or the other, the mental stress and resentment would be an issue in future disagreements. If they can’t find compromise in how they live, then that’s just not going to turn out to be a healthy relationship; with one of them having to have their way.
October 5th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Which makes the issue MORE pressing, not less. If there is a fundamental disagreement about a matter involving the way that the kids are going to be raised which is going to make more work for the person who is given the majority task of raising said children, how is it “fair” to give the partner who doesn’t have to do the scutt work an equal say in how that is going to shape up?
Let’s put it this way: Let’s say that the dad is staying at home with the bebees and the mom works 12 hour days. Or vice versa, it doesn’t matter. Anyhow, mom who works 12 hours leaves ALL household tasks to dad, including cleaning, laundry, and feeding the bebees. At some point, mom declares that she wants the children to not wear disposable diapers because she feels that it’s polluting the earth. A valid concern, yes. Daddy grimmaces and says that his day is busy enough trying to keep the bebees fed, walked, burped, and diapered, not to mention the house cleaned and dinner in the oven for when mom comes home. He doesn’t WANT to add the chore of laundering messy diapers to the mix–it’s too much work and he feels that frankly, all the bleach and chemicals used to clean cloth diapers is probably doing just about as much damage to the earth as the disposables are doing in clogging up the landfills. But mom has an equal say in the matter and is not budging on her position. Considering she is not the one who is going to have to assume the extra work of laundering the nasty poopy diapers, is it fair for her to make this work demand on her husband?
If we wanted to get into a really fucked up scenario, we could talk about breastfeeding the children rather than bottlefeeding. In this same scenario where the dad is staying home and the mom is off at work, does the dad have an equal say in whether or not his wife needs to take 20 minute breaks every so often and go and pump her milk so that the children aren’t drinking formula (which he’s quite positive will lead to the children being fat sickly retards), when it’s the mom who will have to find the means of doing this? She was raised on formula, turned out just fine thankyouverymuch, and sees no problem with her kids doing the same. Let’s go so far as to say that the wife’s office doesn’t have a pumping station and she doesn’t have a private office, and doesn’t want to make her children’s meals in the bathroom, and the overall office environment towards nursing mothers is not very supportive? (this happens more often than not). Why should the husband get an equal say in this matter when it’s her hardship? It’s a critically important issue — I’m not trying to say that it isn’t. But there is a simple fact that raising kids is tremendously difficult and if one partner is shouldering substantially more of that task than the other then I feel that they should be allowed to say “this makes my job way harder and unless you want to take over that part of my job we’re not doing it.”
October 5th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Great question but I’m not sure that there’s an easy answer. I think that it’s got to be weighed against a bunch of factors. One of them is going to be which person is most involved in whatever the choice is about. If one person does all of the mopping, then I think that it’s fair to say “Look, I do all of the mopping, so my choice of mops is final.” But, with regards to raising kids, it’s a little more complicated than that. At least one person has to work, unless you’re, you know, crazy rich. In many cases, one parent would rather work than take care of children, but that’s may not always be the case. It could be that a given parent wishes that sie could be more involved in the kids life, but that parent is in the best position to bring in the money. So, I’m not sure that a blanket veto on the part of the other parent is entirely fair or right. Part of what is going to determine the rightness of a veto is how strongly the two parents feel about an issue, and the adverse consequences of each side. If the stay at home parent (HP) thinks that the kids should be allowed to go outside unattended, but the at work parent (WP) thinks that they’re still just a little too young, and is worried about their safety, it might come down to working together to find an equitable compromise. Maybe the yard gets fenced off, and the kids are allowed in a small play area in the backyard within easy sight of the indoors or something? I don’t know.
In most cases, I think that the person who bears the burden should have the greater say, but with regards to the raising of children, the fact that you’re instilling values makes it a little more complicated, and I think that sometimes the strength with which someone holds a value or believes something should be taken into consideration. If I’m staying at home taking care of the kids, and my wife is the one working, and she feels very strongly that it’s important for the children to… hell, I don’t know… learn to do certain aspects of the housework. She feels really strongly that it’s important that the kids learn how to cook, and do laundry, etc. Now, as the person spending time at home with the kids, I might find this a burden in some ways, because, ultimately, I can get things done faster and with less mess if I just do them myself. In a case like that, it might be that my finding it a bigger burden means less than the strength of her feeling that the kids should be learning to do those things. And while I could say “Well, you need to teach them”, if she’s at work most of the time when those things are getting done, that’s not necessarily practical.
Another example: I eat meat, but I don’t feel strongly about it. In fact, I strongly empathize with vegetarians, but I haven’t quite decided to make that investment for myself yet, for a number of reasons. If my spouse is a vegetarian, and thinks that we should be raising our children vegetarian, and she feels really strongly about that, I have a hard time thinking that I’d be right or fair in vetoing that, just because I’m the one who spends more time with the kids.
October 5th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Totally off-topic, but one way to substantially reduce the amount of meat you eat is to only eat locally-raised, humanely-treated meat. It’s more expensive, but it tastes better so it’s a fair trade-off. At the start of the year, angrymob and I made a resolution to consciously make 1 meal a week that was totally vegetarian, and we were able to stick to it, but now that we’re only buying our meat from farmer’s markets and the like, we find that we’re easily eating totally veg 2-3 times a week because meat is a little more “luxury” now.
Back on-topic: I think that the laundry/cooking thing is an interesting item, because yes, it would definitely be an extra hardship at first, but so long as you don’t have any philosophical opposition to it (believing that childhood should be completely unfettered by chores or other piffle) then it would seem that the consequences of having to teach the kids how to do laundry and cook would be a short-term hardship that would yield long-term good in that it would give you a little extra time to do what you need to do in the day once they’re up-and-running. Now, it could be that she’s looking at your two-year-old and saying “That kid needs to know how to get the grass stains out!” and in that case she’s being completely unreasonable in thinking that a 2-year-old is going to be able to operate the gas range, separate out the cottons from the wools, or anything like that.
Diet is another thing that I’m very interested in. I’d be really interested to see parents weigh in when they came from different sides of the carnivorous divide. I suspect that most spouses of vegetarians have just learned to adapt and limit their meat intake as it is, so I don’t know if there have been any blowups about “My child is going to have incisors, dammit” but I’m sure there have been.
What’s interesting about this thread is that we’re starting to butt into the area where MRA’s like to claim that if it’s her seed she’s carrying in her belly, he should have just as much say about whether or not she carries it to term.
I still feel the person who has to endure the extra hardship gets final say. It isn’t pleasant, but it really is the only thing that makes sense.
October 5th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
“I still feel the person who has to endure the extra hardship gets final say. It isn’t pleasant, but it really is the only thing that makes sense.”
Yeah, I have to agree.
I think the mom’s wrong about video games in general, but the father wasn’t doing anything to help the situation either. Having to fight (even more) with kids about getting their homework done is one of the reasons that a lot of adults thinks it does nothing more than rot kids’ brains. So, rather than taking MP’s excellent suggestion, or sitting down as a family and figuring out a play schedule ahead of time, he goes ahead a buys it and then lets her deal with all the downsides. Yeah, that’s pretty damn selfish; not just towards her, but towards the kids he’s supposedly trying to raise.
October 5th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
The person who’s not home can demand whatever they like. But if Mom says “I want you to use washable diapers,” she’s not going to be able to make that happen unless she’s the one actually changing them, right? It’s not that hard for Dad to say “I’m going to use disposable diapers. If you care about Mother Earth, then you can personally obtain, use and wash cloth diapers when you’re home.” What’s she going to do–sneak home at lunchtime and throw out the disposables?
And you didn’t post a link to the asshole thread….what fun is that?
October 5th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
heh — myth, I was hoping to see you here! (Finally! Actual parents!!) :p
I thought about posting a link to the original thread but decided against it mostly because I didn’t want to be seen as trying to start a flamewar, and I generally get on in the community overall … I don’t remember them being this hostile to feminists but then it’s a technical forum generally so the politics are all over the map.
Also… wouldn’t sneaking home to throw out the disposables sort of put a point in dad’s column? I mean, talk about waste…
Poor angrymob has been arguing about this with me all week — and it’s not to say that there isn’t a realm for compromise, but it’s so interesting that tone of the threads have been how the compromise in the above situation is “how does the wife learn to compromise and love the Wii” and not “how does the husband, who initially went behind his wife’s back to avoid compromising now compromise and take responsibility for the impact of the purchase on his children?”
October 5th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Maybe I’m being naive about this because a) I’m not a parent myself and b) I’m living in a country where there’s socialized childcare and other perks for parents, but really, whenever I listen to people debating conflicts like this I get the feeling it’s a low-intensitity war between parents. If I can’t avoid that and find some equal trust and responsibility, why should I even become a parent? To get a new mother to dodge with permissions and excuses? Good parents wouldn’t do that, IMHO.
It’s not about getting the poor mother to swallow the bitter pill named Wii. It’s about her accepting what we all should know is right — gaming isn’t brain rot, it’s in fact good for children. A fair compromise should be what’s best for the kids, not a middle ground between parental prejudice.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
After a period of inactivity, I have to say that I side with the view that the parent with more time at home. This is a really good question, though… The Wii purchase made by the father was kind of a dick move, and made worse if in fact the kids start causing trouble to the mom if he’s not home and they start acting annoyed because they want to play the Wii. I’m no parent, but I think that if you have the bulk of the time with the kids, you should have greater say on a variety of topics. Values are tougher things to sort out, and definitely require a sort of compromise, rather than going all out and going 100% with one side or another.
Now, totally off-topic… I’ve found great fun in listening to the soundtracks for SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4, and the news that City of Heroes/Villains is coming out with a new Issue (that’s what they call their expansions) made me have a joygasm the other day. Too bad this laptop isn’t made for gaming… Oh, and I STILL haven’t found Civ 3 yet. I might just bring Civ 4 with me when I go home this long weekend.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
“A fair compromise should be what’s best for the kids, not a middle ground between parental prejudice.”
Yes, but springing a non-compromise on the parent who does the bulk of the work is hardly what’s best for the kids. I’m all for them getting a Wii. I’m much more for Dad not acting so passive-aggressively. I think having a less selfish Dad/Husband is more important than having a Mom who doesn’t think that video games are all bad. In my experience, the former tends to mess kids up more than the latter.
You’re right that it’s not about getting her “to swallow the bitter pill named Wii.” But it’s not about “her accepting what we all should know is right — gaming isn’t brain rot” either. The most important thing is that Dad acts like an actual parent and husband instead of a favored uncle or grandparent.
“The person who’s not home can demand whatever they like. But if Mom says “I want you to use washable diapers,” she’s not going to be able to make that happen unless she’s the one actually changing them, right?”
Well, except that she’s now the bad guy if she goes with her convictions. I mean, yeah, if she feels that strongly she’s still in control, but still, fights over what the kids can do is never quite the same as fights over stuff like what diapers you use/how the dishes are done/etc.
October 6th, 2007 at 2:38 am
THIS is why I’m getting my tubes tied.
October 6th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
[...] got into trouble recently by pointing out that buying your kids Wii behind your wife’s back sets her up to be the bad guy when it comes time to set some restrictions on their video time. Naturally, this caused a bunch of people to start arguing that I wasn’t talking about equality, [...]
October 7th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Sadly, I join the hoards of non-parents responding to this.
I see it this way, though:
My partner wants a dog.
My partner is also disabled, and so will not be the one who has to walk the dog and clean up after the dog, and he will not be the one who is culturally blamed when the house is covered in dog fur because I haven’t vacuumed this week.
We are not getting a dog.
October 13th, 2007 at 7:57 am
And this is why I’m glad to be a single parent.