When I try to think back on when exactly I became interested in video games and what prompted my fascination, many different memories come to mind. There’s the old soda shop that I visited every day after school, where I’d suck down chocolate malts and try to beat the high score on Galaga. There's all the Nintendo Cereal System I ate, all the crappy video game cartoons I watched regardless of their crappiness, and all the blue hedgehogs I doodled in school, hopping across the sentences on my assignments. There's the Friday afternoons spent browsing the video game section of the local movie rental shop, and all the times I chose to take home games such as Snake Rattle 'n Roll over Mega Man because I thought the cover was prettier (rookie mistake).
But before all that, my first video game related memories, and perhaps the fondest I have are not of myself playing them, but my mother playing them.
It was very strange to think about as a defiant (stupid) teenager, that a parent could, well, be interested in something cool, but as I’ve grown, the idea no longer seems so far-fetched. I am now roughly the same age as she was when she began playing video games, and at age twenty-two I am as avid a gamer as when I was a youngster, probably even more so. The young Mrs. Davis and I are now one and the same, except I am not living twenty years in the past, nor do I sport a hair-do containing enough hairspray to eat away a good chunk of the ozone layer. Gaming was still in its infancy when mother got pulled into it, and initially, it did not really appeal to her, if only because she had little to no knowledge of what they were like. She probably would have never even bothered with video games, if it were not for a chance happening; life threw a small accident at her that would alter her life forever.
In the years surrounding my birth, my mother was a semi-professional bowler. Nothing big, but she was very talented at the sport, loved it, and spent most of her free time at bowling alleys, brushing up on her game. But as fate would have it, one day she twisted the wrist on her bowling hand and was forced to drop out of the game for good, as her throw would never return to its former glory. Although she could no longer bowl, she could not tear herself away from the alley and continued to visit simply to watch other people play.
Ultimately, she began to get a little bored with just spectating, and likely a little depressed that she no longer could play like she once did. That was when the arcade machines that lined the back wall that she had overlooked so many times before suddenly reeled her in. She curiously put in her first quarter, and never looked back. This is where her obsession began. She did not need a good wrist to do some serious quarter pumping, and she found that she was just as good of a gamer as she was a bowler. It made her happy, and even in my oldest memories, I could sense that.
After a while, she wanted more than what the scant collection of arcade cabinets at the alley had to offer. As home consoles began to really take off, she jumped on every opportunity to bring a new one into the house. I can remember my mother playing rounds of Donkey Kong Jr. and Q*Bert on the first, an Atari 2600, but the memories are very bare-boned because I took no real interest in what was going on, other than the mesmerizing bright colors and the strange noises it emitted. I was probably around two at the time, so it isn’t surprising that my brain could not yet comprehend the magic taking place. My mother sure could, though. Home consoles fed her fascination with games, and it continued to grow and grow.
Not long after the birth of my younger sister in 1987, we welcomed another new member of the family into our home: the Nintendo Entertainment System. Ironically, I have a more vivid memory of the arrival of the NES than the arrival of the new baby. At first, I still had no interest in the console, besides watching other people play and gnawing on the controller wires (I went through a phase where I chewed on anything I could get my hands on; flip-flops and my older sister's Barbie dolls were my prime targets). But this would soon change.
I think it's safe to say that my mother can look back upon the NES in the same happy, nostalgic way that I can. The late 80s were unpleasant times in the Davis household; divorce and financial problems lay as a heavy burden upon mother's back, who suddenly found herself single, broke, and with three growing girls to feed. I don’t know it for certain, but I believe my mother began to use games as a coping mechanism. It is not that far of a stretch, as I too use video games to console (pun intended) myself during hard times and a pick-me-up when I'm feeling a little down. But I remember waking in the middle of the night, after my little sister kicked me out of bed or rolled up all of the covers off of me in her sleep, and seeing a dim glow flickering underneath my door. It happened often enough for me to know right away what it was, and I crept out of the bedroom a few times to peek around the corner to see mom bathed in the light of Tetris at two ‘o clock in the morning. I did not quite understand what she was doing up so late, and why she was playing so intensively, but I felt strangely calm as I watched her. I would sit and watch until she finally lumbered off to bed, where I would scurry back to my room before she noticed I was there. I remember these nights so fondly, because mother was in her happy place, and somehow, I could feel it too. To this day, the sound of B-Type playing still puts me in a happy mood, and I am fairly certain that my love of puzzle games stemmed from watching these late night sessions of Tetris and Dr. Mario.
In a scene that may or may not be looked upon as heartwarming in this day and age, a mother taught her young daughter how to correctly point a plastic gun and pull the trigger with the grim intentions to make the rivers run red with blood. Duck blood, but blood all the same. And there it was, like the arcade machines were for my mother, my hook was that glorious orange gun. From that moment on, I began to play more games and started my own life of gaming. My mother kept up with me every step of the way, and never stopped gaming herself. She has recently bought herself a Wii and Super Mario Galaxy, and plans to purchase Mario Kart Wii in the near future so that we can begin to play together again, even though we are more than eight hundred miles apart.
I may look confident, but my mom destroyed me in this game of Wii Sports bowling.
As our generation of gamers grows old and begins to produce offspring, worries abound that they cannot be good parents and still play games, what with all the stranglings with controller cords and babies being named Sephiroth going on. But my mother is living proof that a gamer parent can raise a child, and raise them very well, as long as they have some sense about it. I very well could have been named Ms. Pac Man Davis, but she held back and put parenting before the thing she loved so dearly. However, thankfully, she did not hold back completely; she found the perfect balance between raising children and her video games. And damn if she ain't the most awesome mother in the world for it.
I may not have ever started playing video games had it not been for her, and would not be here writing about all this, because it would have meant nothing to me. But she made it an important point to pass along the activity that brought her so much joy as she raised me and my sisters, in hopes that it would grow to bring joy to us as well. And it has. I can never thank you enough, mom, for that. My greatest hope is that one day, I too can pass on my love of video games, and when my children are grown, they can happily think back to where it all began for them as I can.
Attached photos:
 
|
|
There are 41 comments about this post:
|
(# 0) on 05/11/2008 13:03
(# 1) on 05/11/2008 13:15
I could only wish that my parents were as console friendly!
(# 2) on 05/11/2008 13:26
My mother, like yours, had enjoyed playing Ms. Pacman and is always able to make time for at least one quarter's worth of play time.
Good stuff, Ash.
(# 3) on 05/11/2008 13:40
(# 4) on 05/11/2008 13:46
(# 5) on 05/11/2008 13:58
(# 6) on 05/11/2008 13:58
(# 7) on 05/11/2008 14:14
(# 8) on 05/11/2008 14:17
LOL, Same thing sort of happened to me first time I played starfox :P
(# 9) on 05/11/2008 14:56
I remember I tried to get my mom to play Diddy Kong racing with me one time... that was great D:
(# 10) on 05/11/2008 14:59
(# 11) on 05/11/2008 15:02
He's just not tall enough to be seen in the cropped version. ;D
(# 12) on 05/11/2008 15:59
(# 13) on 05/11/2008 16:16
My mom isn't much of a gamer, but she loves Mario and Zelda. She has all the games from the franchises, and only plays a little bit of them. Though back in the day, she was super hardcore over the original Zelda, and has beaten it a couple of times.
She doesn't have as much time to play anymore and mostly plays Brain Age on her DS. I think she would play more if she had time though.
(# 14) on 05/11/2008 17:12
OH she laughs when i play Grand Theft Auto Vice City because she finds funny the way I drive. Lots of laughs waits us on GTA4 ^_^
(# 15) on 05/11/2008 18:09
(# 16) on 05/11/2008 19:23
I remember trying to teach her how to transfer her vacation pictures from a digital camera to the laptop, and while I was moving the mouse around I noticed her head was following the sharp movements of the cursor on the screen. So I did a couple of quick circular motions with the cursor and her head almost fell off trying to follow it around. I started laughing and she had no idea why. lol I'm horrible.
(# 17) on 05/11/2008 19:37
(# 18) on 05/11/2008 19:51
Sadly, my mother is largely gaming-impaired. She gets as far as Solitaire and Tetris, and that's about all she can handle. My dad, on the other hand, is (or was) slightly more interested. Way back in the day, he would occasionally use the NES, especially for Dr. Mario. Later, we would play Tetris Attack together on the SNES, and then we upgraded to an N64, where we would play Mario Kart 64, and sometimes Goldeneye, on a nightly basis.
He and I currently have one of those awkward, not-sure-how-to-connect father-son relationships, so I remember those days very fondly. Unfortunately, I think most of today's games are either too violent for him or are just way over his head, complexity-wise.
(# 19) on 05/11/2008 20:02
Now she digs party games when the family is together, and is looking forward to Wii Fit... She's pretty much a Wii stereotype, but oh well...
(# 20) on 05/11/2008 20:50
I'm pretty sure that most parents aren't gamers because of the complexity of today's games. The only reason my mother is still gaming today is because she stuck with it for all of these years, and her playing evolved alongside gaming. I imagine it would be fairly difficult for someone with little to no experience with modern games to get into what we play today. Plus all of the bad hype that surrounds it scares a lot of older people.. sigh.
If nothing else, get together with your father and play Mario Kart 64 again. Sure it's old, but that's what we do whenever I go home, and we still have as much fun as ever. :)
@ZombiePlatypus: When my mother told me she bought a Wii, I was like, "Oh boy..". I figured she had hopped on the hype train to Party Gameville. But then she told me she bought Mario Galaxy with it, and my fears disappeared. Good old mom. Though she does like those dancing games too.. hahah.
I was proud when I got her playing Zack and Wiki when she visited me last. She loved it. :)
(# 21) on 05/11/2008 21:27
Me, I could never get my mom into gaming beyond Wii Sports; in retrospect, Super Smash Bros. 64 might have been a little above her comprehension. Oh well, hopefully I can get her to play some Rock Band this summer.
(# 22) on 05/11/2008 21:30
Unfortunately, not only are my parents not gamers, they don’t even approve of the activity in general — they see it as a waste of time and money, etc. So all my gaming memories comprise playing NES, Genesis, PS1, and PS2 with my brother. But hey, now I get paid to play and write about games...so ha!
(# 23) on 05/11/2008 21:56
Everything I could say has already been said.
(# 24) on 05/11/2008 21:57
(# 25) on 05/11/2008 22:07
(# 26) on 05/11/2008 22:26
Marriage proposal imminent.
(# 27) on 05/11/2008 22:35
It makes me smile even more because of how similar it is to my own mother's experience; she was a nationally-ranked bowler who twisted her ankle in a camping accident. The time spent in a cast brought her to purchase Tetris for the NES, and a similarly timed dog-bite injury on my part had us playing together during a few "cant-go-out" summer weeks.
Oh, video games and parenting can go hand in hand. And I would have loved if I was named Pac Man, just for the record.
(# 28) on 05/11/2008 22:46
(# 29) on 05/11/2008 23:04
mother never gamed, but my father did. he was the one that introduced me to gaming (though i probably would have gotten into it eventually through friends). i would play all the NES and SNES classics with him - mostly RPGs like Zelda and Final Fantasy. good times.
(# 30) on 05/12/2008 07:15
(# 31) on 05/12/2008 08:06
What a great mothers day on DTOID this has been. With this story and Chads mom being in the other story. Great stuff.
(# 32) on 05/12/2008 08:12
(# 33) on 05/12/2008 08:22
(# 34) on 05/12/2008 08:53
I just got my mom Animal Crossing today in hopes of expanding her video gaming horizons beyond the Tetrises and Dr. Marios of way-back when. Here's hoping.
But, again, that was another truly great blog! Keep it up, champ. I've got a feeling (shared by others) that you're going to be oft-seen on the front page.
(# 35) on 05/12/2008 12:35
(# 36) on 05/12/2008 12:39
(# 37) on 05/12/2008 14:35
I'd love to, but the N64 isn't working anymore. It turns on, but the controllers don't do anything. Sad face.
(# 38) on 05/12/2008 15:49
(# 39) on 05/12/2008 16:38
(# 40) on 05/12/2008 18:38