Those of us with children await the day that the inevitable will happen. Your budding bundle of joy will come opening doors at the single most inopportune time and find themselves facing a situation that their young minds should never be forced to comprehend. And you, incapable of hiding the shame rapidly spreading across your face, are you ready to sit them down and give them an explanation of what they’ve just become witness to in a manner simple enough that they will understand and also delicate enough that it won’t shatter their views of the world forever? But it could’ve been worse. You might’ve been having sex.

My first experience came one afternoon while my little booger was out at the grocery store with mom. Typically I have a window of about 30 seconds from the time I hear the front door open to save my game and turn off the television. On this fateful day, however, I didn’t hear the door. Nor did I hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet carrying with them the determination of one single goal – Where’s daddy? Bursting through the door like Wonder Woman getting the drop on some bank robber, I’m greeted with an excitable voice shouting, “Hi daddy! What are you watching?” This is where my palms sweat, my mind goes numb and my mouth mutely mumbles, “Saints Row.”



Like any other day, she skips over and hops in my lap before concerning herself with the unusual shaped remote control in my hand. I start in with some windy episode about what a video game is, which she intently listens to the first sentence of before declaring that it’s her turn. I like to think that I’m a man with nothing to hide, so I hand over the controller and start telling her how to move. We happen to be right by the hospital, and she spies an ambulance. I’d say the entire experience was worth it when I told her she could drive it. Her face lit up like I’d just led her to the end of the rainbow and into a field of unicorns. No harm no foul until she turned around with a shameful look of her own whispering, “I just ran over a people. Do I tell them I’m sorry?”

Things get a bit more awkward. My wife walks in, looks at me, looks at the screen, then looks to our two-year old daughter sitting in my lap looking back and forth between the controller and the mayhem of people fleeing themselves from the path of a crazy underage female driver. I flash my best awkward smile only to have her turn her back on me and walk out of the room. Visions of couch cushions in my head, I go back to instructing my daughter on how to trade in her busted ass ambulance for a shiny new red car, informing her that the driver we just pulled out had stolen the car and we were going to take it back to its rightful owner… as soon as we ditched the police officer who saw us do it. Morals are slippery. It’s about this time that my wife returns into the room, wide-eyed at the load of crap I was feeding my daughter about a modern Robin Hood lifestyle and began snapping pictures of the scene. I’m guessing for blackmail reasons.


(I don't post pictures of my daughter on public bulletins. Nothing personal.)

Watching the mini-map, I noticed a crosshair appear. After bribery of chocolate, I got the controller back from my daughter long enough to race over to my hitman target, pull out the suggested weapon and blast the guy, finishing off the airport hitman activity. Unfortunately, my daughter had been standing in the doorway just out of my eyesight as I did this and began questioning what just happened. As any loving father would, I told her that I needed to take the man’s picture, soon followed by saying he didn’t like having his picture taken and so he laid down on the ground so I couldn’t see his face.

I was perfectly content with this particular lie until my daughter, daddy’s girl that she is, wanted to run around and take people’s pictures. The glee and laughter that came from her innocent yet entranced smile continued to pound down the guilt nail deeper and deeper into my pine box resting place. Finally she got bored and wanted to go play in the back yard for a bit, but not before I showed her that we could ride the train around the city, which she thought was almost as cool as driving the ambulance and turning on the sirens.

Much to my enjoyment, she’s never asked to play the game again. In fact, the only one that she’s requested without walking in on me playing was the ‘scary game,’ otherwise known as Fable II. She has an uncanny fascination with video games, however, and I like to see her explore as much as possible. I found out about nickjr.com and that it has a rather impressive list of games from each and every show. I’ll write up a review about this later seeing as how this one’s already getting a bit lengthy, but I will say that I’m very supportive of introducing her to video games through that website. The games are thought provoking and there’s no way to die, skirting another detailed conversation that I’m terrified to have with her.



One of the things that I am proud to say about my still-developing parenting skills is that my little girl doesn’t subscribe to just one past-time. She’s either playing with toys, playing sports with daddy, playing video games, letting me read to her or doing ABC flashcards (You can get these at Toys’R’Us and I recommend them to any parent trying to teach their child letters and numbers). She’ll watch television and movies, but for the most part she’s incapable of sitting still for that long. So while she requires near-constant companionship and I don’t get to be the gamer I used to be, I’d say I’m getting the better end of the deal.