My mom redeemed herself

It was Christmas 1991.  My family had driven for two days from our home in Dallas to gather with my mom's family in the Pennsylvania farmhouse where she had grown up.  Everyone came from different directions, and being so far removed from our extended family combined with my childhood shyness meant that I spent most of the holiday watching everyone else.  I remember that year I received a doll who drank water from a bottle, then cried real tears when she was squeezed.  I thought it was brilliant, but my cousins quickly dubbed her "Baby Smiles while She Cries" and mocked my new toy.  Just when everyone was finishing the great present opening, my grandparents announced a surprise.  Each of the five families were to remain where they were as my grandpa disappeared, then returned bearing four identical wrapped boxes.  My sister and I sat with our parents and watched as the boxes were distributed to each of my aunts and uncles, then cries of delight filled the room as my cousins discovered that they had just been gifted a Super Nintendo.  I looked at Liz with confusion until my grandma crossed the room to whisper that our mom didn't want us to have a video game console and she had had to return the one purchased for us.  I was outraged at the injustice.  I already knew what a Super Nintendo was; Brian, who lived two houses down from us and chewed off my Barbies' feet, had one, and he let me play Super Mario Brothers with him, although I secretly preferred Duck Hunt.  Liz and I looked at our parents.  My dad shrugged and looked away, but my mom stuck out her chin and gave the first of many lectures about the evils of video games.  They rot your brain.  They make you lazy.  You would fight over it.  Your dad would spend too much time playing it with you.  I couldn't believe it.

So yes, I grew up in a house without video games.  I read books, rode bikes with my neighborhood friends, memorized all the state capitals, learned origami and French, played with the dollhouse we got for Christmas the following year from our grandparents, and watched cartoons.  When I was in high school, another video game seized the nation: Goldeneye.  People would have parties just to play together.  Boys at school would brag about staying up for an entire weekend playing the James Bond game.  I played it a few times with my friends, but I was terrible at it.  I could never get the right combination of buttons and somehow always wound up in that bathroom stall with no idea how to open the door, so I just had to wait for another player to notice and come kill me.  I blamed my mom for never allowing me to learn on that Super Nintendo.

Finally, I met and married Chris, who grew up in a family that didn't have such strong moral objections to video games.  He brought a Playstation into our marriage, and liked to play it when he came home from work.  At first, I would sit and read or sew while he played, and had to insist that he stop playing Grand Theft Auto (ugh).  Then I got curious, and asked him to teach me how it worked.  We didn't have cable those first few years, and occasionally I got tired of watching my Gilmore Girls DVDs.  I wanted to play the fun games like Burnout with Chris.  He showed me how to work the controller, and found it hilarious to watch me careen around the room instead of sitting completely still with only my thumbs moving.  A few years later, we bought a Nintendo Wii.  You'll like this one, he advised.  You're actually supposed to move around to make it work.  And I did like it.  I liked playing Mario Kart, especially when James figured out how to work his own controller and we could race each other.  The thought of banning him from playing video games never crossed my mind.

And then, this past Christmas, two decades after the original Nintendo disappointment, I opened a wrapped box from my parents.  They sat with the same excited smiles my grandparents had worn twenty years before.  I opened a Nintendo DS.  "Is this for me?" I couldn't believe it.  They nodded.  "I thought you would like it," my mom said.  Okay mom, I forgive you for denying me that Super Nintendo all those years ago.  I probably did have a more well-rounded childhood not spent connected to a video game.  And now that I have so many other interests and concerns, I can relegate my DS to its proper place.  Which is why it took me 3 months to open it and begin playing.