Reflections

One thing about Blaugust --and other prompt type events-- is that if you've been around long enough you've pretty much answered all the questions. 

PC is --by far-- not the longest running MMO blog out there, but even in it's almost 12 years of existence I've answered enough "About Me" questions that I'm tempted to just share links to previous times I've answered those particular prompts. In lieu of regurgitating things, some bloggers turn to unique methods of answering these questions.

I give props to Kaylriene to providing a unique, photo driven way of answering the About Me prompt with his Getting to Know You Round 2, showing off his "work" area and all the cool things inside.* I don't have such a cool spot to game, because sitting at an old dining room table in what would in past years been a formal Dining Room** isn't exactly that cool to look at. (Who wants to look at bills and notes scribbled on paper, anyway?)

And believe me, I've seen cool gaming rooms, because my sister-in-law's husband has one in their basement:

This is one end of the room....

...and the other end, complete with
a booze collection. I was told not to take
a pic of the gaming table because "it's a mess."

At one point I was attempting to put in a gaming area in our basement --where my "office" used to be, but it ran into one inevitable part of life with three kids: we needed a place to stick their stuff as they grew up, and the gaming area became that place.

Therefore, we game as we always have: boardgames/RPGs are played at the kitchen table, console games on the television in the room next to the kitchen, and PC games on laptops (kids) or the desktop (me and my wife) in their rooms or my "office".

***

It's not as if my entire gaming history has changed much, either. 

My tolerance toward my kids' activities has been driven by my own parents' lack of the same. I don't need to rehash this, but my surviving parent --my mother-- still thinks to this day that D&D is Satanic. She told me once a few years ago that she was glad my kids "never got into that Satanic role playing stuff" like I did. I kept my mouth shut, because that wasn't a hill to die on, but I had a good laugh with the kids afterward. 

This tolerance extended into the kids' real life as well. I was never allowed to be in my room with the door closed until my Senior year of high school, and even then that was because I would be working on my two term papers for English class until late into the night. The tapping of the typewriter was too loud to leave the door open, and so my parents relented only so that they could get some sleep. 

When I came back home from my Freshman year of college, I hoped that I would be given the latitude and freedom I felt back there, but I discovered that I was wrong. 

Oh, so very wrong. 

I was still required to be home by 10 PM and in bed by 10:30. I was still expected to be at dinner at 6 PM, no matter what, although in the unlikely event I was on a date there was a bit of flexibility.*** I was also expected to go to Church in spite of my own creeping dislike for organized religion, which was fueled by a slow burning fury how the Evangelical Christian movement --exemplified by television evangelists-- stoked the Satanic Panic over my music and my gaming activities. All of that fueled my desire to be back at college, even during the Summer, no matter what it took. 

Even after I was married, my dad tried to exert some measure of control over me but soon discovered that I wasn't having any of it. I was my own person, a grown adult without any financial debts to him, and he no longer had any say in how I conducted my business.

When I had kids of my own, I swore I'd not repeat the same mistakes my parents made, and gave my kids more latitude than I ever had. That didn't mean that I let them do whatever all the time, because I did intervene when grades started slipping or there were other issues that required parental involvement, but I wanted to make sure they were given enough freedom to find their own way rather than be sheltered from the world. I didn't force them into playing sports or any other activities; I merely provided the opportunities in athletics, music, nature programs, or whatnot, and let them discover if it was something they wanted to do. I was the one who introduced them to gaming and geekery, and I gave them the freedom to explore both without judgement. 

Have I succeeded in my approach? I'm not sure, because I don't know what's going on in their heads, but I think they're on the right track.

***

I guess that's more of an "about them" rather than "about me", but I suppose they are a reflection of me to an extent, whether I like it or not. It'll be some decades before I discover if I really did the right thing, but here's hoping.

*His Getting to Know You Round 1 is also worth reading, but is much more depressing.

**I converted this to my --sorta-- home office because my wife gave me an ultimatum to move out of the basement. I used to have an office in our unfinished basement, but every winter I would come down with a severe case of bronchitis, and she finally got tired of me getting sick when the weather turned cold.

***When I graduated high school, I pretty much cut the cord from any real relationships from my classmates and those of the all girls Catholic high school next door. If you've ever been a non-conformist or a geek in a Catholic school environment that prized athletics more than anything else, you'd understand. Even those who I considered friends would attempt to use my friendship to get me to do things for them, as if friendship were a bargaining chip. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, given that most of my friends' dads were salesmen. (Cue Willie Loman references from Death of a Salesman.)