Editor's note: This week the Supreme Court made a decision that took the responsibility of regulating video game sales to kids away from the government, leaving it largely in the hands of parents. Here is the way one Christian mom negotiated her way through that challenge.
When we first held our sweet newborn son, we knew we would protect this little one from the evil of the world, helping to develop in him the good and true. Fast forward 13 years. Now we have a teenage son surrounded by choices. The moment comes again and again when we must explain just why Andrew has to be the odd one out - the one person, for example, who is not going to own "Call of Duty: Black Ops."
Andrew is not so much interested in "Black Ops" as he is interested in being able to participate in the ubiquitous discussions about the game at school, at swim practice, wherever teen boys gather. He wants to be included. Who doesn’t?
I had the same experience in a way. I was not allowed to see "Star Wars" or watch some truly stellar television, like “CHiPs” for instance. Everyone else did, and they all talked about it. I couldn’t be part of it. It was mortifying.
So when to give in, and when to hold firm? To get more insight, I googled "Black Ops," looking for some reviews from Christian magazines or parenting sites. The closest I could come up with was a Christian Black Ops “clan” looking for more members so that they could play against each other with less of the usual exceedingly vulgar language that comes from random online players. Epic fail.
So then I skipped to the source of all wisdom - Facebook, of course. I asked for discerning Christian opinions on "Black Ops" and teens. Answers ranged from “Absolutely not - it’s violent and vulgar and can in no way edify,” to “Maybe giving it a try will help him learn to discern,” to “Relax, boys will be boys.” Seriously, not much help here, not because I don’t respect those who gave me their opinions, but because in the end it comes down to a very personal decision.
When Andrew was 3, he gained some older brothers in the form of two young men that we fostered for a while. John and Deng came from Sudan, two of the Lost Boys who had to escape their villages without the rest of their families. They survived, but many of their companions lost their lives along the way to soldiers, airplane bombs, wild animals and starvation. We told our children as much as we felt they could handle when they were young and we filled in more facts along the way as they grew older.
So a few years later, we just can’t allow into our home a game that turns killing (even if it’s a good soldier eliminating terrorists) into entertainment. A few days ago I gave a less heavy-handed version of that speech to a couple of his friends when they were over. What can I say? I’m a super-fun mom. First they said they disagreed, because in the game you are defending your country. I told them that someday they may be called to defend their country, but that I was pretty sure it won’t be fun. They then told me about relatives who had been killed in war, and others who told them how awful it was. I think they actually got what I was saying, though I’m not deluded enough to think I convinced them to stop playing.
In the end, we told Andrew that each parent has to make decisions for their own children and, in our opinion, games that make him a first-person participant in war cannot be good for his soul. Our answer won’t make him happy and it may even make it harder for him to fit in, but there it is. I think he gets it and even respects it, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t the end of the argument. In the meantime, we’ll be holding firm on this one, taking parenthood one hard decision at a time.
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Comments (19)
And yet, in that very same game, shooting people and running them over with cars is not just commonplace but encouraged... and in Black Ops, the player is a soldier who kills their enemies in gruesome ways. The blood and violence of contemporary video games makes the brouhaha over Mortal Kombat—the big video game violence fight of my youth—seem almost comical in comparison. And some Christian parents think that's totally okay to give to their kids.
So nipples or simulated sex—depictions of a part of every person's body or of acts that, in the proper context, are edifying and positive—would absolutely not be considered okay for anyone under 18, but killing someone gruesomely by shooting them, sniping them, knifing them, running them over with a car—things that are certainly not part of God's desired order for the world—are up for debate as to whether our children should be emulating and putting themselves in these practices?
Please keep in mind that I'm not in any way indicting you in this, Ms. Quist; this is more a reflection on our culture and the comparative taboos we have for sex and violence. You appear to have made a serious and conscientious choice, based on your understanding of Christ's message as well as your own experiences of the pain and suffering caused by violence, and I applaud your choice—not just because I agree with it, but because you made it in a way that takes the question of redemptive violence seriously and asks what the real-world consequences are of those attitudes. But I challenge you to ask yourself: How quickly would your answer have been "no way, Jose" if he'd wanted a video game that had sex in it?
Should we play these types of games in moderation or should we just leave those who play them to themselves?
It sounds like she's trying to get him to take seriously the broken and bruised lives that result from real violence, the trauma that doesn't end when you turn the XBox's power off, and the people who stay dead rather than just hitting the Continue button.Avoidance would be if she just pretended that Call of Duty didn't exist, or banned it from her home without explaining why.Engagement is relating the violence in the video game, violent acts that the player is asked to put themselves in the role of performing, to the Lost Boys of Sudan and the violence that has killed so many people close to them and set them on the run from their home. Do you think those boys would be so flippant in pulling the trigger on a "terrorist" in Call of Duty?
Engagement is asking one's son what he thinks it might do to his mind or heart to constantly be putting himself in the role of a person who engages in acts of violence, acts that in real life have real consequences. Does he think of the "terrorists" he shoots—who look more and more realistic with every passing generation of games—as real people, or just more pixels on a monitor? Do the people he's "shooting" in the game feel pain as the bullet enters their body, do their families feel loss, do their mothers attend their funerals? How does the son think that affects the way he looks at real people?
Engagement is allowing the Holy Spirit in oneself to get righteously angry that war and violence, things that have no place in the Kingdom and are a perversion of our humanity, things that leave nothing but death, destruction, and scarred lives, are glorified by these video games—and sharing that anger with one's son in hopes that his conscience might also be pricked by it.
Side Note: If any child/young adult cannot decipher for his/herself the difference between reality and fiction, or understand that there is real pain, in real war, in real life/or that murder is wrong and one cannot blame video games for real life decisions: They are too stupid to be protected from themselves to begin with and they will have a rocky path ahead of them. Allow the kid to be a kid and learn for themselves and become who they are born to be. Do not interfere, it only makes things worse. I've seen good kids turn into hellions over parental over protection, and vice-versa// You get the drill. Anyone who thinks they can argue with psychology, just wants to argue all together.
Children are immature, still growing and unable to exercise adult discernment. That's why we are parents. Our call does not mean we hide our children from the world nor tell them No to everything "because God said so". It is an investment of our lives into understanding God's perspective, training them based on God's word, loving them, and helping them grow. That means we will give them opportunities to make choices, but it also means we will restrict choices when they are clearly against God's word and His direction to us as parents.
Most times childhood rebellion is not caused by parental restriction; rather it is caused by the lack of love and compassion that accompanied that restriction.
When my adult(18+) children decided to buy and participate in the game, in my home, I watched and asked questions. It's not my bag of chips, but I know that my kids have good brains, good reasoning skills, and a good, deep rooted faith. They know that it is a game. Needless to say, they may not play the game when my grandson is around.
Ultimately, when they are adults, whether we like it or not, they get to make their own decisions. We can only trust, as believers who have raised our children as believers, that God is in control of their lives, that God will be in their minds, and hearts, and lives from beginning to end.
looking for more members so that they could play against each other with
less of the usual exceedingly vulgar language that comes from random
online players. Epic fail."
I'm not sure what, exactly, you're referring to with your "Epic fail" remark.
Is it an epic fail, in your mind, that Christians are playing this game at all? Is it an epic fail that they're creating a separate subculture within the game? Is it an epic fail that others who play the game often use vulgar language?
I may be reading this paragraph wrong, but it seems to me that you're being offensively dismissive.
While I don't necessarily agree with the idea of creating a separate group (better to engage others than separate yourself from them), I certainly don't see harm in a group of people who enjoy playing a (very fun) game wanting to avoid some of the awful things that are often said via in-game voice chat.
Either way, I think your overall point is a good one, and, as a gamer, I completely respect the decision you made. I think you did an excellent job engaging the issue, rather than ignoring it (or worse, viewing it in black-and-white terms).
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