I just saw this on Reddit today and I wanted to share it here.
When you’re a parent, you have to realize that the child you brought into this world is going to be their own person and you’ll have to start getting into things you may not understand and have ZERO interest in.
However, you damn well better act like you are.
I can still remember the feeling as a kid getting Pokemon Red and it being something I loved so much, so I wanted to share that with my mom. I wanted to show her my team, tell her about the gym leaders I took down, and she just took a glance at the Game Boy color and went “mmhhhmm”.
She gave zero shits when I beat Banjo-Kazooie, a game which was INCREDIBLY hard for grade school me and you can make me have war flashbacks if you so much as say “Rusty Bucket Bay”.
My town in Animal Crossing? Catching rare fish? Who cares?
I liked a cartoon series so much that I wrote little stories about it? “No, I don’t want to read it.”
This type of stuff matters to kids so damn much and she’ll never realize how much it hurt our relationship. It might not seem like a big deal she never sat down and watched me play something like Luigi’s Mansion, but that’s how kids try and bond with their parents.
After constantly being shot down they’ll eventually stop talking to you entirely.
I’m a teacher and I was at a teachers conference where in the opening ceremony, the lady told a story about her husband and her daughter.
The husband was a tall sporty guy and was stoked to have tall kids so he could play basket ball with them. But as the daughter grows up (tall as can be) it became clear that she has no competitive spirit and would really rather do theatre.
the husband was devastated, but before he could pressure the daughter into anything, the wife stopped him and asked why it was so important to him to have his kids be playing sports. And i will never forget what his answer was.
“If they dont play basket ball, what will i connect with them with? what will we talk about?”
i was shocked. so shocked i texted my dad and asked him if he was ever worried we would have nothing to talk about. he said another thing i will never forget.
“i figured if you guys were interesting, i’d be interested”
my dad bought me my first kingdom hearts game. he encouraged all of his daughters to pursue their artistic inclinations. both of my parents have been at all of me and my brother’s school plays. they helped me buy my computer.
please just act as if your kids are people. because they are.
Actual quote (because I knew “if you guys were interesting” wasn’t right... :):
I always figured that if one of you were interested in a thing, it’d be interesting to me, too. At least on the level that we could talk about it.
