Aging Gamer: Parenting

<p>The Aging Gamer has been on hiatus for a while&comma; getting older and wiser&period;  I&&num;8217&semi;ve leveled up and now have more tidbits of elderly information for all you young readers out there&period; For those who don&&num;8217&semi;t know me&comma; my brief biography is as follows&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m thirty-seven  and have been playing video games since I was seven&period; I grew up on the Nintendo and the Super Nintendo&comma; and even a Vectrex&comma; yeah Google that one&period; With all that history under my belt I try to link problems from back then to problems I have or could have in the future&period; Now I am not a parent&comma; and one day I would like to be&comma; but I&&num;8217&semi;m told it is easier to have kids if you can get past a first date&comma; so I&&num;8217&semi;m working on that&period; I do think that my parents had it hard trying to pick what games to get me with absolutely no idea about the hobby&period; When I become a parent&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m thinking that I will know exactly what to buy my offspring&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;104005" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-104005" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-104005" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;04&sol;03195923&sol;405896&lowbar;4986520135553&lowbar;1272808200&lowbar;n&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Yes&comma; that's me one 80's Christmas morning&period;" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"436" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-104005" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Yes&comma; that&&num;8217&semi;s me one 80&&num;8217&semi;s Christmas morning&period;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>My poor parents had to figure out gaming on the fly with no Internet to help them&period; Every Christmas during the 80&&num;8217&semi;s&comma; my parents would buy Nintendo game after Nintendo game not really knowing what they were getting&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m sure they were smart enough to ask the person at the store what games were popular and so on because I have some great classic games&comma; but I also have some stinkers&period; My parents gifted me with <em>Castlevania<&sol;em>&comma; <em>The Legend of Zelda<&sol;em>&comma; <em>Super Mario Brothers 2<&sol;em> and so on&period; They also saddled me with horrible versions of <em>Joust<&sol;em> and <em>Gotcha&excl; <&sol;em>With the little knowledge they had and how young the industry was&comma; I think my parents did an incredible job starting off my video game hobby&period; Even at thirty-seven they are still helping out by tracking down the knock-off Sega Genesis that&&num;8217&semi;s out there&comma; which works great by the way&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>My parents were also respectful of my hobby&comma; they knew I liked to game&comma; but put boundaries on the Nintendo so that I wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t fail elementary school&period; Their stern hand helped my college career as well&period; I purchased a Dreamcast when I was a junior in college so that I could play <em>Resident Evil&colon; Code Veronica<&sol;em>&period; My grades did not suffer&comma; nor did any of my extra-curricular activities&semi; all was right with a Dreamcast in my world&period; Somehow they ingrained in my mind that life and responsibilities came first&comma; and gaming came second&period; I honestly have no idea how my life would have turned out had I not been shown this path&semi; I could be a homeless guy who flunked out of college or I could be a champion <em>League of Legends<&sol;em> player&period; Sadly&comma; I will never know&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;104017" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-104017" style&equals;"width&colon; 600px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-104017" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;04&sol;03195901&sol;dc&lowbar;red&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Not my Dreamcast&comma; but man I wish" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"450" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-104017" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Not my Dreamcast&comma; but man I wish<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The children that I hope to sire one day will have less of a hit or miss with me&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve been gaming for almost thirty years&comma; so I have a very good grasp of the industry and what children and adults of certain ages would like&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m going to know to start my spawn with the Lego series and work them forward&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s the best way to get them interested and to teach them how controllers work and so on&period; Plus&comma; who doesn&&num;8217&semi;t like <em>Lego Harry Potter<&sol;em>&comma; perfect selling point&period; As the children grow&comma; I would introduce them to the &&num;8220&semi;mature&&num;8221&semi; games that I&&num;8217&semi;m sure they will be hounding me for as little ones&period; I&&num;8217&semi;d never give in though&semi; there is no reason for a 10 year old to play <em>Grand Theft Auto<&sol;em> and <em>Call of Duty<&sol;em>&period; The kids can wait for their violence fix when they are old enough&period; It is sad knowing that some parents don&&num;8217&semi;t even take the time to see what their child&&num;8217&semi;s hobby is&comma; or what they may be playing&period; After how well I was raised by my parents&comma; I owe it to my future children and the online gaming world&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;