I can hear my son talking to his friend on the Xbox.
He is on the couch in his school uniform,
controller in hands and one of those officious bouncer headsets on his head. The
half of the conversation I can hear goes like this;
“Hi.”
“Pasta.”
“No.”
“Yeah. I finished it ages ago. Did you not? Did your Mum not
make you?”
“Oh my God I just died!”
“No I said I just died.”
“No. That I died.”
“Hugo?”
“Hugo?”
“Hugo are you still there?”
“No, I said that I died on the game I’m playing.”
“That I died on the..
I sit in the kitchen clenching and unclenching my fists.
Surely I couldn’t be the only person who has to restrain themselves from
chewing on the edge of the kitchen table at this point? For his own safety I
bark:
“Time up! Turn it
off! Now!”
“I have to go. “
“Hugo? I have to go.”
“No I..”
“NOW!”
Dear God, when his dad discovered the headset a few weeks
ago I thought it was a good thing. Or at least that it made the Xbox less a bad
thing, introducing a little conversation (of a sort) to the painful sight of
him sitting on the couch, leaning towards the screen and prepping his hands for
years of repetitive strain injury.
When we bought it I hadn’t realised the console we
chose was the one with least parent approval.
Our eldest reached eight and we
thought it was reasonable enough to have a games console in the house. I think I
based my choice of the Xbox on a memory of staying in a cousin’s house and helping my kids
get started on their Wii. Finding the sensor or waiting for the controller to
synch up with the screen seemed random, irritating and near impossible and
convinced me that I never wanted to deal with a Wii on a daily basis.
Of course once we owned the Xbox it became clear(to his great pleasure) that almost
every game available was of the shoot-em-up variety. And so, the shelves beside
his bed now display, alongside The Wind In the Willows, Let’s Make Great Art and
Nicholas And Friends, Hellboy, Dragons Dogma and Armoured Core.
And I have grown accustomed to hearing, when I mention the Xbox in mothery
circles, that I am the only one. All their children are quite happy with the
Wii. And it is great! It gets them moving! It really is exercise!
Come on? Really? Actual exercise? The games do look like they were designed for
children though. I’ll give them that. Mario and his pals are inane, but they
don’t look like they would haunt your nightmares. Hellboy, on the other hand is
more or less guaranteed to.
He’s been asking for more games recently, of course.
Games, when I checked
some online forums that are “fine for kids. Apart from the busty but skinny
prostitute who stands in the bar that the hero races through and offers him “a
special.””
No, I'm not quite sure what the special consists of. (Yes, I was curious too.) I'd have to buy the game to find out and that's not going to happen any time soon.
Unless, I could do a trade and get him to give up the headset for it? Oh my goodness. Did I just think that thought? Bad, bad mother.
