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A facebook post by Tiffany Pitts The text reads:
An Argument In Favor of Video Games From a Quarantined Mother #Quaranteens #WTFparenting My 15 yo son has spent every second of his free time during this pandemic hanging out online, playing video games with his friends. He started by ranking up to the elite tiers of Apex Legends. I am told this is quite a feat. Honestly, I believe it because it took him and his friend 6 hours a day for a week to rank that high. After that came Sea of Thieves. He joined up with more friends and sailed the digital oceans until piracy lost it’s shine. Also, when two friends started arguing in game. 2 nights ago they made a plan to meet up as a big group on Fortnight. None of them really play Fortnight much anymore because the crowd is a little younger. But they didn’t want to work too hard at playing, they just wanted to hang out. Last night, six of them met up again on Fortnight to hang out and play. They were goofing off, doing stupid teenager stuff, when they met a solo player named JamMaster. Sometimes if they meet solo players that are pretty chill, they’ll join forces. JamMaster seemed pretty young but he was by himself and they were having fun showing him what they knew about the game. They invited him to join their crew. Pretty soon they discovered that their first impressions were correct. JamMaster WAS much younger than they were - only 10 years old. They also discovered that it was his birthday in the morning. The boys realized that JamMaster had been hanging out by himself all night, on the eve of his 1 Ith birthday- which he would be spending by himself in quarantine. CLEARLY SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE. Y'ALL, THEY THREW HIM AN 11TH BIRTHDAY PARTY They took him on a bunch of adventures, gave him all the loot they could, helped him win a few battles, and made his stay up until midnight so they could all sing happy birthday to him. This morning, as my son told me about their adventures and all the fun they had, I started to cry. I was trying to say something like “Oh that’s so nice” but tears just started spilling down my cheeks. He could not understand why. But…but… CAN YOU IMAGINE? The disappointment of being quarantined for your 1 Ith birthday only to be met by a random six-pack of teenage gamers who decide you’re awesome and want to throw you a birthday party? What a roller coaster. What an experience. What an incredible thing to do for a young gamer. In conclusion: video games, hell yeah.
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I think this woman is also a quality mom, because how many moms listen enough to what their kid is interested in to know what game they’re playing and how much time they’ve invested, and to listen to them talk about their game enough to hear a story like this? maybe it’s more common than i expect but this is the kind of engagement with my interests i craved as a kid
