and so they grow up

[flea]

Conversation this morning:

Casper: How old do I have to be to get a Tendo DS?
me: Hmm, I don't know. What do you know about the Nintendo DS?
Casper: It has a little board that you hold and you can play video games and draw on it with a stick. If I was sick one day I could play with it and not be bored.
me: Does anyone you know have one?
Casper: No, none of my friends.
me: Maybe it's for kids who are a little bit older.
Casper: How old do I have to be in our house rules to get one?
me: Well, I don't know much about the Nintendo DS, so I'll need to get some more information about it to decide.

The house rules thing makes me laugh - we have one house rule about age, which is she can get her ears pierced at age 10 if she wants to.

I hate video games, though. I have childhood trauma around sexism, video games, and being ignored. So we'll have to see where we go with this.

Comments

[fashionista-35.livejournal.com]

I hate 'em too, but mostly because the vast majority of them bore me. However, I'm married to a devoted gamer (who manages a GameStop, even) and both of the kids love games-- Nate more so than Abby but they both have fun with them.

I will say this, there are a lot more games out there that are more gender neutral than there were when I was a kid. Both of mine have DS Lites so if you need any advice or thoughts, I can get with Lewis and ask him stuff. FWIW, we didn't let the kids have them until they were about 10, which was late by a lot of their friend's standards, but they seem to have survived. *g*

[orthoepy.livejournal.com]

Little Bird got his when he was about six and half? seven? Most of his friends have them, and they are surprisingly, more social than I remember video games being. They all cluster around and play each other with them, and there's a lot of backseat gaming. He mostly plays Mario Cart (? maybe?) and various Pokemon games.

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have some issues, but OTOH, it's a whole "because I'm a girl, I didn't get started at a young age, and the boys did, so they were already good at it, and I wasn't, and I was at a disadvantage" kinda thing. If that makes sense.