Playing World of Warcraft with the kids
Jan 17th, 2008 by Jill
A little over a year ago, G and I bought ourselves World of Warcraft for Christmas. The kids were playing it, G wanted to play with them, and I wanted to get to know them better.
So I installed World of Warcraft, created a character and plunged in. At first, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. It was like being a newborn. I saw colors and shapes and movement, but my brain couldn’t make sense of it. Then I realized I was looking at the world through my character’s eyes. I was three feet tall, standing in a snowy clearing looking at Chris’s legs. Chris’s character was the size of an adult human, and G and I were little gnomes.
I couldn’t figure out how to walk at first, but Jack and Chris were there to show me how. They taught us how to fight wolves and ogres, and kept them from killing us. Jack led me around the country, showing me the important places I needed to know about and eventually taking me to my country’s big city. I kept losing him as I tried to follow him, and he’d come back for me. I wonder what it felt like to him. To me it felt like being a little kid — dependent, confused, helpless, impatient, trusting, and safe all at once.
After the first week or so, G and I mostly played together while the kids went on quests with their friends in more dangerous territory. You can make your character do cutsie things like kissing and dancing and hugging, and we were always smooching in the game and looking into each other’s eyes and jumping up and down at the sight of each other, so I think the kids got bored with us pretty quickly. But we were exploring a world that they were playing in, too. We were fighting battles and solving problems that they’d worked through and that they and their friends talked about together, but that not a lot of other grownups talked about with them. We were learning about a world that they were expert in, and sometimes we needed their help. Something shifted between us, at least for a while. I think they saw us not just as their dad and future stepmom, but as people, too. And I saw them not just as people who I was supposed to help and take care of, but as people who helped and took care of me, and who sometimes knew more than I did.
You know how when you’re watching a movie, after a minute or two, something happens in your brain and you don’t think about watching the movie anymore — you’re so absorbed you feel like you’re in the movie? The same thing happens with games. After a few minutes, you’re not watching your little gnome run around on a computer screen — you’re in the game, running through snowy forests in leather boots hunting wolves.
G and I had many strange and wonderful adventures there, but my favorite memory of all was of meeting one of Jack’s friends in the game before I met him in real life. We’ll call him Brian. G and I were fighting a bunch of raiders on a hill near a grassy plain. They were too strong for us, so Jack sent Brian over to help us out. He was this tall, strong, experienced warrior, and he protected us while we tried attacking the raiders again. He let us do as much of the fighting as we could without getting killed, and when it was over and we’d won, we thanked him very gratefully, and he went back to higher level lands.
A week or so later, I was picking Jack up from school, and he pointed out Brian who was sitting nearby. “You’re Brian?!?!” I said excitedly. In my brain he was that tall, experienced warrior. And I still saw him that way, but he was also a fifth grader. “It’s nice to meet you. Thanks for helping us out!” I felt respectful. I felt like I was talking to a warrior in a fifth grader’s body. He came over and encouraged me and gave me advice about the kinds of quests G and I should be taking on, and how to go about them. And I think — but I don’t know — that while I was seeing him as a fifth grader who was also a big strong warrior, he was seeing me as a person, too — not just an adult — but another human being interested in something he knew a lot about.
It was exhilarating to be pure people just for a little while to the kids and their friends. I know — in this life at least — our roles as parents and stepparents are important. But getting to know each other outside of those roles for a window of time was worth every dollar and every hour. When I think of World of Warcraft, I think of meadows and plains and forests and brave adventures and feeling a taste of what it’s like to be a child and what it’s like to have adults guiding you and advising you and looking out for you, and I think of being seen — really seen — by people who normally see mostly my role, and I think of G’s/Pikkel’s green eyes and shock of green hair, and I think of him smiling and dancing at a me.
Jack leading me through the countryside, taking me to see a big city named Ironforge.
That’s a really interesting perspective!
Your post reminds me of the post on Gaming With Children today (http://www.gamingwithchildren.com/2008-01-17/gaming-with-kids-good-or-bad/) about whether parents should play video games with their kids. I think it’s good to understand what the kids are up to.
Great link! Thanks!
Great post! Ironically, I just left a comment for Lori-Lyn similar to this… Although I’m definitely not wired for video games (having tried in the past), MySpace has been a godsend for me to connect with the kids in my life…because it allows me to communicate with them in an environment where they feel comfortable. I can have email convo’s with them in MySpace that I doubt we could have in person…there’s something about leveling the playing field in the blogosphere so they’re a little more open in MySpace (speaking for the teens…the little one’s still open all the time).
And it helps me to be respectful of their feelings and social life…and not talk ‘down’ to them and joke around…as if those things are something to kid about.