In the Beginning...there was Mortal Kombat!

Trying to find a jumping off point was a little hard at first, but after some time I finally figured out a good place to give you an idea of what my life is like with the kids. about 4 years ago, when I had just moved in with Amanda and the two boys, she went out to pick up some groceries for everyone. Perfect time to teach the kids some good hand-eye coordination with a little friend of mine called Mortal Kombat! Needless to say the kids enjoyed playing the game, but we're made to fully understand that in no way shape or form could you do any of these things in real life. My motto was "If they're going to play, they need to know reality." and reality is, you cannot punch someone in the face so hard that it comes off. Now I'm not an advocate for people blaming anger on games, but Amanda clearly didn't think it was a good idea at the time, because as soon as she came home she saw Hunter's (my now 8 year old son) character being upper-cutted into the pit. Now if any of you are a big fan of MK, or even remotely heard of it, you know what happens after that...big fall, big spike...amazing death. Hunter turned to his mother after that, and looked at her open mouthed stare, and simply said "its ok mommy, its not real...you can't uppercut someone that hard!" Ah...a boy after my own heart. Let this be a lesson, you can teach your kids the difference between acceptable and unacceptable, real and fake, enjoying a good game, or letting it make you angry and want to beat people up. All it takes is guidance, something that alot of these parents now-a-days don't understand. Now I know alot of people will say "but wait Sean, aren't you one of these now-a-day parents?" Correct, I am a parent in the here and now, but I was also raised right, with a sense of morality. I don't let the video games babysit my kids, I let them get out a little bit of the stress from school and everday life (especially with daddy being in EMS!) by playing a few games, even if a few of them are a little more graphic than the average kid friendly one. The main difference between me, and father game hater is that I teach my kids that this is fake, and anything like this in the real world is and always will be extremely punished! Enough ranting, work in the morning, and I still have two more chapters of MK to unlock for the boys. Good night fellow parents and gamers!