Generation Gap

My kids consider me to be an impossibly cruel, uncaring and dysfunctional mother for one sole reason: I refuse to buy them a Play Station. Neither do they have a Ninentendo DS or a Wii or any similar machines designed to suck out their brains and turn them into couch dwelling zombies. How often has Carl whined "but my friend xxxxxx has one! And his Mum lets him do ANYTHING!"

Do I think I'm a better parent because I won't buy them one of these toys? No, I don't. But I do believe that my particular kids - those incredibly active bouncy little boys who sometimes seem to be composed of dynamite, amphetamines and adrenalin bound together with a hefty dose of testosterone - are a lot better off without a Play Station.

However none of us lives in a vacuum and as a type of compromise I have bought the boys two plug-and-play games you connect straight to the t.v. The first is from Pixar and has four very cute and entertaining (the kids would translate this as BORING!!!!) games based on Toy Story and other kids movies. The other has a whole bunch of different games, all fairly low resolution and frankly kind of retro. Fortunately it doesn't have the high tech programing or graphic gore that seems to be chronically addictive and they don't get it out very often.

Yesterday it was pouring with rain and we were all a bit stuck for someting to do, so we sat down to play with this game. I've never bothered before because frankly gaming just doesn't interest me. So we were sitting there and as Carl scrolled through the menu I saw a space game. Suddenly I had a flashback to my own childhood; "hey, a Space Invaders game!"

They looked at me with blank stares and I realised with shock that there probably have been GENERATIONS of kids born who haven't heard that term. Anyway I sat down next to Carl and had a turn at the controls. Ten minutes later I was five levels up and my thumbs were starting to ache, but this was the most fun I'd had on a computer for ages. Niels was watching silently and when I finally gave up, rsi setting in to both hands, he nodded and looked impressed, then totally popped my bubble by adding "mmmmmm, not bad for a 39 year old mother."