{"id":858,"date":"2008-08-01T08:18:37","date_gmt":"2008-08-01T14:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=858"},"modified":"2008-08-01T08:18:37","modified_gmt":"2008-08-01T14:18:37","slug":"an-uncomfortable-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/01\/an-uncomfortable-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"An Uncomfortable Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My speech finished, I stuffed my papers back into their folder, and that into the black backpack at my feet. A small crowd was gathering in front of the podium, parents thanking me, congratulating me, or maybe nursing a question of some kind. It was a typical PTA meeting on the South Side of Milwaukee when I encountered one of “them.”<\/p>\n

You know them don’t you? They’re the sticks-in-the-mud, the sourpusses, the kind of person who feels that they can – and should – dictate morality. I smiled. Why not? And met her gaze.<\/p>\n

Why are they always mad? I think as she raises her hand and stabs her finger at me to puncuate\u00a0the\u00a0words\u00a0spewing from her lips.<\/p>\n

“Video games are vile and wrong!”<\/p>\n

I’ve heard that one before, so I give her a half-smile and hold her gaze.<\/p>\n

“I can’t believe you defend them! You’re a video game apologist.<\/p>\n

Apologist? “Lady,” I answer “video games have nothing to apologize for.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

She doesn’t break the stare either and almost shouts: “There’s nothing redeeming about them and the fact that you defend them makes you a monster!”<\/p>\n

She’s never played Civilization, I think.<\/p>\n

“Violent games are a scourge against society!” spittle is forming at the corners of her lips but I barely notice.<\/p>\n

She has no idea what Half-Life is. . . she’s never played Rock Band – she doesn’t know how fun that is.\u00a0Maybe she’s never even seen Guitar Hero. Is that even possible?<\/p>\n

“They’re corrupting the youth and you’re helping them!”<\/p>\n

Of yeah, she’s never played Madden, that’s for sure but she has no clue that the DS was made for uptight control freaks like her. All those puzzle and daily achievement games – good for obsessives.<\/p>\n

“Playing video games . . . ”<\/p>\n

It’s amazing how I never think about that. I made it my job to defend video games and my “opponent” is a human being who has no concrete knowledge about the debate subject.\u00a0 Isn’t that sort of like having your doctor and a janitor argue about what disease you might have. Why is the janitor even there? Jeez, play one game before you go all crazy.<\/p>\n

“. . . will make kids pay a price!”<\/p>\n

She doesn’t know what RPG means, I stifle a small grin and simply stare back at her.<\/p>\n

“Maybe the ultimate price!”<\/p>\n

She’s never played Portal! She has no idea – has she even played Pac-Man? Why am I even paying attention to her? that’s what I think. What I say is different. What I say is “Yeah, $60 is high for a game but I’m not sure I’d call that the ‘ultimate’ price.”<\/p>\n

And then I wake up.<\/p>\n

True story.<\/p>\n

Wish me luck on another workday. . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My speech finished, I stuffed my papers back into their folder, and that into the black backpack at my feet. A small crowd was gathering in front of the podium, parents thanking me, congratulating me, or maybe nursing a question of some kind. It was a typical PTA meeting on the South Side of Milwaukee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}