A few months ago, I was in a McDonald’s playground with my then three-year-old while a bunch of kids of all ages were in there, too. One boisterous boy was playing with my kid, and I ended up talking to his much shyer older brother, who was about eight. He made one very quiet reference to Minecraft, so I engaged him on it - I don’t play it myself, but my husband does, and it’s the first game he’s played a little with our son, which I relayed to the boy. He lit up and started telling me all about the different swords you could have and what they did and how much he loved it - his enthusiasm only dimmed when he told me his copy of the game was broken, and had had to be taken away to be fixed. I commiserated with him about this; and then, the second he was distracted by something else, his mother, who was also in the playground, leaned over and whispered to me, in an exasperated-conspiratorial voice, “It’s not really broken. We just took it away and told him that. He was playing it too much.” And then she laughed, like she thought I ought to agree with her.
In that moment, I felt so unspeakably angry and sad on the boy’s behalf that I didn’t trust myself to respond, because there are certain things you can’t say to a strange parent in a McDonald’s playground, and what the fuck is wrong with you is one of them. What I did say, when I’d marshalled myself, was how creative a game it was, how you could build different things and how much my son and husband enjoyed playing it together. She smiled and nodded with vacant politeness, and then the younger kids started arguing over a toy truck, and we had to go focus on that instead.
Afterwards, all I could think about was this sweet, shy boy who still thought he was going to get his game back soon, and who would likely be put off and put off again about it until he came to the quiet, independent realisation that he’d been lied to. When he’d been talking to me, I’d noticed, too, that he had some grammatical issues with his speech - not major stuff, but he was confusing his tenses on words in a way that’s more common with younger kids, fumbling the pronunciation of longer terms. I hadn’t corrected him on it, but it made me wonder if it was something that had gone unnoticed by his parents, who didn’t exhibit the same speech patterns (meaning, he wasn’t copying their bad grammar), and if so, whether it was because they had no interest in listening to him talk about his interests, given that his mother seemed embarrassed by him talking to me about Minecraft, as though she assumed I’d be bored.
And like. I just. Maybe the kid was addicted to the game and playing too much, but in that case, removing the game in secret doesn’t actually teach him moderation? It doesn’t even let him know there’s a problem, because he just thinks it’s broken? Literally the “solution” here is to hope he forgets about a thing he loves and never asks for it again? And I just felt so heartbroken for him, because I’m sure as hell not a perfect parent, but if I take something away from my son for misusing it, he knows:
a) what’s been taken;
b) why I’ve taken it; and
c) when he’s getting it back,
because otherwise there is literally no way for him to learn from that experience. But given that this boy’s younger brother was much more physical and rambunctious - and how much leeway he was demonstrably given in play, even when he was being rough with my kid - what I suspect is that his parents didn’t understand his interest in a quieter, indoor pastime and wanted him to be more like his little brother. Which is perhaps a lot to read into a family of strangers in a playground, and maybe I’m being uncharitable, but if nothing else, it was very clear that the kid loved Minecraft, that it engaged him and spurred him to talk where he was otherwise shy, and that he’d had it taken away from him without his knowledge.
Listen. To. Your. Kids.
kianamaiart
tangentwithtanner
annaxmalina
gummygunk
