Proving that irresponsible parents will find anything to blame on their children being nasty little thugs, a mother has written to dishrag "newspaper" The Daily Mail to blame the Nintendo DS, of all consoles, for the corruption of her innocent little darlings. While The Guardian embraces gaming as a new cultural mainstream, The Daily Mail is still clinging pathetically to the past with "stories" like this.

"I finally buckled to buy a Nintendo DS Lite after considerable and sustained pressure from my children," states mother of four Rosie Millard. "What finally did it was a suggestion from my oldest child that without a Nintendo in her school bag, she would be unable to fit in at school. (Yes, I know - oldest trick in the book. And I fell for it) ... I also had a sneaking and totally selfish wish to be Mother of the Year. Which I was, for about a day."

After the DS arrived however, Rosie noted how the toy caused "endless rows, sessions of screaming and increasingly regular parental punishment." Because, of course, buying one Nintendo DS for FOUR children was always going to be a good idea, right?

Our Nintendo had taken the guise of a small but toxic drug which, little by little, was poisoning my children.

When they had had their fix, they were even more frustrated and discontented than before.  

... I have first-hand evidence that using a Nintendo turns my delightful, curious and funny children into argumentative demons full of aggression, wholly uninterested in anything apart from playing, and then playing some more.

According to Millard, who already admits she buckles under pressure from her kids because she wants them to think she's awesome, the DS is the sole reason why her spawn would be selfish little pricks who can't share -- nothing to do with the fact that they're, y'know, children, and children tend to be selfish little pricks by nature. You buy a cool toy for four kids to share, and this is what is going to happen. It's not because the DS is a "toxic drug," it's because children don't understand common decency.

Anyway, now that Millard has donated the DS and its games to charity, I am sure her children will never do a bad thing, ever again, ever ever. Hyuck.