Kotaku
You guys should probably sit down for this.
At the UK Daily Mail, an exasperated mother has written an excoriating screed, blaming the Nintendo DS for making her children "turn into monsters":
Hand over the Nintendo and without any effort, you have a window of about two hours of peace, with your child doing something quietly constructive.Except, it's not. What is constructive about playing football on a tiny screen, or washing a virtual dog, or watching a hideous pink pony trot around a pink palace decorated with shells?
Fighting to get onto the machine was bad enough, but it was worse when they were forcibly dragged from it.
Our Nintendo had taken the guise of a small but toxic drug which, little by little, was poisoning my children.
This breed of article may seem to exist solely for the purpose of raising gamers' blood pressure, and yet in defense of our medium — which at its core has the potential to be educational, relaxing and family-friendly — we must take on the task of dissecting these accusations in as dignified and level-headed a fashion as we can manage.
First of all, a mother with four children aged 10, eight, five and three decides it would be a good idea to instruct them to share one DS? Did no one instruct her as to the nature of siblings at these ages? In an act defying sense, she blames video games for making them fight and hit one another — even when she admits openly she was hoping that giving her kids the device would indulge her "sneaking and totally selfish wish to be Mother of the Year."
The mother describes how the kids were completely bored with brain training games, irresponsibly mishandled the hardware and generally fought and abused one another and her for the DS — and the conclusion that she draws is that the device ruined her serene family life.
Can anyone pick out what's wrong with this picture?
Ninten-Don't... How I watched my children turn into monsters the minute I bought them a computer game [Daily Mail]
Comments
Yea, that she should have bought the Wii.
LOL... Old-fashioned thinking never gets old :)
I've got a killer idea! Raise your kids properly instead of blaming a handheld for their issues.
Why do all the kids look evil?
/palmface
That's UK idiocy for you (I come from the Uk). The point is not to make your children do something constructive, it's to let them have fun and entertain themselves. That is a woman with a crushed sould and no imagination. Rather than even let her children be happy and enjoy themselves she wants to drag there hides outside and make them do something 'productive' which would most likely involve either helping around the house or making them do some random sport which isn't really productive either.
They're children so let them have fun.
cant expect ugly people to think better than they look anyway.
Less fucking to produce a child every other year, more devoting the time remaining to develop parenting skills.
The woman could have written "I'm a stupid parent raising shitty kids" and leave me with the same impression.
Kthxbai.
So i guess if they didn't have a DS, the slinky/gi joe/kickball they all had to share would be ruining their serene family life.
Problem is: she bought one DS for 4 kids? Jeez, buy a Wii or something that all the kids can play at one time.
Buying one toy for 4 kids to share is just a recipe for disaster, especially a toy/system made for solo play.
@TheLastGunslinger:
i second that!
Those kids look evil, I think I like them.
oh fuck right off...
hahaha! man thats great. and they said EA is the on stealing souls!
I stopped reading at 'Daily Mail'.
Amen! It's about time someone steps up and says what we are ALL quietly thinking here on Kotaku.
Video games rape peoples minds. It's the truth.
first two sentences say it all.
"Hand over the Nintendo and without any effort, you have a window of about two hours of peace, with your child doing something quietly constructive."
Translated:
Use the Nintendo to babysit our kids for 2 hours.
@JonC:
ditto'd
"Can anyone pick out what's wrong with this picture?"
That bitch has 4 kids, but ain't no daddy in the picture.
Did I guess right?
She should have bought a gaming system that comes with a very reliable gaming timer, so that the kids could only play for a limited amount of time before it shut down.
And the timer ought to be quite child-proof too, so that they couldn't disable it.
Like the Xbox with its RRoD.
OK I'M KIDDINGGGG
That's like giving 4 kids one wine gum.
She blames the company that doesn't have GTA on its system?
Well, at least she's being somewhat original.
No offense to the wonderful lady, but perhaps this is a parenting issue, not a Nintendo issue?
How is it that the legions of people my age raised on the NES seemed to turn out okay? Perhaps it is because Nintendo wasn't being used to replace proper parenting.
@okenny :): The only old-fashion thing that worked effectively, you find this parents today going all out to ban.
My sister tried so hard to reason with her three-year old until she adopted the ancient technique of ass-tanning along with her reasoning. Needless to say, it hit the point home.
So playing with dolls and playing house is as bad as virtually doing it?
Or this is some sort of double standard?
Maybe she should try...oh I don't know....being a decent parent!!!
@balls187++: I logged in to say the same thing. Who's the daddy(ies)?
@TitillatedOcelot:I concur, maybe if she raised her precious little snowflakes with a bit more effort. . .
Those kids are staring into my soul O_o
When the pale blue, £150 Nintendo finally arrived last November, fresh from Hong Kong (I had bought it on the net), crammed with a 'bundle' of 20 games including Brain Trainer, Fifa 08, and Nintendogs
AVAST MATEY!
See the small girl in the picture, smirking like a con artist?
She's obviously playing GTA4, the mom totally missed the real culprit.
Holy crap, it's like the audition photo from The Omen.
Ma'am, the DS may be the only thing keeping you alive in that house. Get a good pair of sneakers or a priest!
@balls187++:
Dude I laughed hard.
He probably wised up pretty quick.
Stupid, stupid woman.
Of course My Little Pony isn't 'constructive', what did you expect from a game like that, colour by numbers? Maths tests?
My Little Pony is too addictive to be constructive.
These kids look like your typical pains in the ass... AKA any kid. Come on man, you cant give ONE DS to FOUR KIDS!!! Way to go mom. If you weren't spending your money on a dog, the violins, gas to take them to their football games, you could've bought 3 others, or sold one kid and bought two more. Christ, you can't manage them to begin with, because obviously they are deviant beings from hell and want nothing more than to play with virtual puppies and play FIFA while they should be sleeping.
Wake up MUMMY!!! If you spent less time forcing your kids what to do rather than letting them find their own outlets, maybe they wouldn't fight as much. I'm SURE they would rather be cleaning and cooking than say, finally figuring out who killed Mr. LeTouse in Apollo Justice...
And Brain Age games ARE boring... I'll give her that...
DAMN THOSE ARE SCARY KIDS!!!
She's not a mother, she's a tabloid plaything. She does not seemingly promote any true ideas of sharing or respect in her parenting. She promotes piracy and overall ignorant of how to bring up her children appropriatly.
On a more serious note, she clearly didn't think it through, to blame Nintendo for creating a good product is like blaming the alcohol industry for creating beverages that get you drunk if not used in the right manor.
Everyone here should go and post comments on that article about what a fool of a parent she is.
@LowerHouseMember: LOL A+
I think what's wrong with the picture is that that all the kids have bad haircuts.
Seriously I'm the third of five and my parents didn't hesitate to take the NES away when we were bad.
That one kid in the back looks like he's plotting his revenge.
Typical Daily Mail scaremongering. As soon as I read she bought the DS to shut her kids up it became clear she's just another of the problem parents we have in the UK who cannot say "No" to their children or instil a sense of discipline or respect into them. The fact that they're all fighting suggests she hasn't managed to teach them how to behave rather than the DS being some sort of subversive tool for brainwashing kids into misbehaving.
The fact that smacking is now illegal thanks to all of the do-gooders doesn't help either.
Also calling it a "Nintendo" is cute.
Hmmm. I think I'll buy one crack rock and lock it in a room with four crackheads. I don't foresee any problems. They'll thank me and I'm sure they'll all get along wonderfully.
I got uninterested in what she had to say very quickly when she referred to the DS as "the Nintendo." If she wants to know what the problem is, she just needs to look in the mirror.
I can't imagine two kids sharing a DS, let alone four.
My DS must be defanged because its sitting on the shelf collecting dust until my Starfox DS game comes in the mail.
I hope it hasn't poisoned my dog. :(
Jacky T, I think we found you a new life partner finally.
I remember when I was 10, 8, 5, and 3 and could afford a $150 video game system.
Oh wait.
Oh for fuck's sake. Rather than blaming videogames, she should learn there's more to parenting than letting games and TV raise your kids for you.
She hoped to be Mother of the Year by buying her kids a DS? Is the soft in the head? How about you take them to the museum, the park, camping, etc? How about you raise them by SPENDING TIME WITH THEM?
This is the umpteenth time a shitty parent bashes videogames in an attempt to deflect blame from themselves for how their children are behaving.
Videogames can completely peacefully co-exist with other activities in a child's life, as long they are used in moderation. They're just not a substitute for family time, plain and simple.
Why does that family photo remind me of the Gloom card game?
@Cruithne: I love the look on the kid in the Top right. He's got like a demented little Kubrick stare going on. I bet he's the one that threw the first punch.
Step 1: Beat your children if they act stupid.
Step 2: Repeat, as necessary.
I'm guessing she tried to train her kids on Imagine: Babies with poor results.
Me and my brother fought over control for our gaming systems, but our mom laid down the law the good ole' fashioned way and we went about our business peacibly.... with a swift Sonic Boom on a 'round of Street Fighter II from her.
But yeah, don't blame gaming systems when your cretins do not respond to 'parental punishment'. The kid's have some sharing and personality issues that have to be addressed by actual parenting.
In case you're wondering about that picture, it's about as staged as 9/11.
Too soon?
WHATS RIGHT WITH IT!!!
Seeing as I do sociology, and well i like stereotypes cause of it, is she butch? ...i mean a Feminist? lol
im sorry i aplogise
anyway blame nintendo wow thats like blaming old people for societys breakdowns :D
The kid in the top left is freaking me out!
Doing math problems & taking care of a virtual pet? Truly toxic. They should be playing Liberty City Stories instead!
I think she has a point. Watching a pink pony trot around a pink palace decorated with shells does sound hideous.
"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."
Her "delightful, curious, and funny" children seem to have problems with sharing and greed. That's not very delightful.
Or you could just buy a second DS, mom of the year.
I know I'm walking into a minefield here... but I kind of think she's right. Yeah, big mistake buying a handheld unit for four kids, but my parents never bought a console for me growing up, and also limited my computer game time and TV viewing. Yes, I was the guy at GoldenEye parties that kept running around in the corner getting capped, and I wasn't always the most up-to-date with pop culture.
Not to say there's a correlation, but as a kid I spent a lot of time reading. I attended one of the most elite universities in the US, and now am independent and have a good job that allows me to, among other things, buy GTA4.
Seems like everyone around here is quick to jump on the 'over-reacting' bandwagon, but read the article - her kids abandoned reading, drawing, and playing music to fight over Fifa 08. I don't think Fifa 08 will get you into a good school or a career (for most of us non-professional gamers), but being able to play the piano could help you get into school. Being good at the piano can also get you laid.
I'll get off the soapbox and try not to break my hip in the process.
As the parent of an 8 year old girl I can safely say that woman fails at parenting. She is an absolute idiot to not buy 4 DS systems for those kids. They are probably going to hate her for the rest of their lives and blame her for expensive therapy.
I wonder how they handle the TV remote, the telephone, the toilet, the car seat, mommy's friggin' attention... You get the point. Maybe she's hoping Nintendo's going to swoop in and give her kids some free DSs.
If that's what happens, then I'm going to start complaining about how Sony's responsible for the lack of 1080p TVs in my area.
Yeah never buy one DS for four kids. That's bound to cause fights. Video games are fun, and really populkar at any age. me and my siblings fought over our Sega Genesis all the time when my parents first got it for us. Why? We only had single player games.
and they never even thought to get us any multiplayer games.
Then it just got worse, they put a physical lock on the T.V. started rationing out play time (like 5 minutes a week if ewe were lucky.
You know what that brought about? Sneakiness, we spent every waking hour trying to find ways around the lock, trying to disablre it, steal the key for it, the lesson?
buy enough so that all the kids can play at the same time.
4 kids: 4 DS's
4 kids: 1 wii with 4 controllers
4 kids: 4 player games.
It's really fucking simple.
She just a bad parent. One of the dumbest I've seen in years.
@photoboy: @okenny :): Can't wait until i get to Japan... They appreciate Ass-tanning / smacking there, and there aren't absurd hippie doctors there telling them a little swat on the backside is the equivalent of beating them senseless with a club... In many places in the US, a spanking can earn you an arrest... One of the things I really hate about my nation.
and yeah those kids look evil.
STFU!