My Parental M.O.

I love my kids and a lot of that affection spills over on their friends as well. But I'm not the kind of dad who finds children's games very entertaining. I rarely even pretend to enjoy them. In my opinion, the best baby sitter is another child of about the same age.

So I'm not the kids' play mate, I'm their support staff. Since my son reached the age when he no longer saw other kids as a kind of unusually loud and mucuous furniture, he has had a lot of visitors in the weekends. At about half past nine on a weekend morning, I reckon other families with kids will be awake, and I tell him to call his buddies. His kid sister can't use the phone by herself yet, so I take care of that detail for her.

Today we have two guests, one for each of my kids. All four are currently in the nursery behind a closed door, playing loudly and contentedly. My job so far has been to help the little ones button up some of the more complicated creations in the dressing-up box, to cook, serve and supervise lunch, and to arbitrate one or two small conflicts. Apart from that, me and my wife have had the day to ourselves. I've vacuumed the apartment, taken the old paper out for recycling, sent some paper mail, blogged and corresponded a bit. After lunch I sent the big boys out on a walk around our car-free housing area to let off some of their excess energy.

As a parent, I may not be a very good source of entertainment. But I'm always around, and my kids' friends know our home as a friendly place where they're always welcome. A source of considerable pride to me.

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At least you're not just popping in a DVD and sitting the four of them in front of the television for hours on end. Sadly, that's what many folks do these days.

I concur. While I consider myself to have been a really hands-on mom, it was always a matter of self-discipline to make myself sit and play a board game, for instance, with my kids when they were little. And I STILL hate games, though my kids are long since grown.

My son has a lot in common with 8-year-old me. I can see us playing the Gameboy together. Only my game was a Donkey Kong Game & Watch.

Card games are also nice, and something they can be introduced to early -- I remember learning how to count by fiddling with a deck of cards at about age 3, and I even learned two-handed pinochle by age eight.

If you need a 'reason' other than that it's fun, it's a good way to teach a kid that rules are arbitrary, but when you are involved in an activity, important -- and later he can experiment with changing the rules and seeing how THAT works.

Jim! You live! Welcome to Aard!

I used to identify as a gamer. It started when I was twelve and got into role playing, and lasted for about fifteen years. Now I just play a few rounds a year of simple board games. Life has its chapters.