Didn't I Feed You Yesterday?: A Mother's Guide to Sanity in Stilettos by Laura Bennett

Author:Laura Bennett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 0345516370
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2010-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

“EXECUTE YOUR ENEMIES. LEAVE NO SURVIVORS,” A MENACING voice intoned over the cacophony of warfare coming out of the TV connected to the Xbox.

“What was that?” I exclaimed, turning from my desk toward my son. Peik was hunched over the controls, oblivious to the world. I do allow them to play war games, but even I have my limits. I draw the line at executions.

“Turn it off!” I yelled, getting up from my chair.

“I can’t,” he claimed, not looking at me. “I am in the middle of a mission, and I can’t save now.” I have heard this excuse before.

“I said, turn it off.” Peik casually reached over to the remote and pressed the mute button without losing the spray of bullets coming from his avatar’s AK-47.

“Turning the sound off is not turning the game off!” I shouted. “Turn it off now.” Only when I made a move for the power button, and he feared he would lose everything, did Peik pause the game and come over to me.

“But, Mom, you know that I have to get to mission nine or I won’t be able to upgrade to an M-16. With an M-16, I could blow my enemies to hell.”

“Halfway to hell with an AK-47 will do just fine.” I looked him in the eye, unblinking.

“Okay, okay,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air and retreating to the boys’ room, no doubt to log on to yet another game on the Internet.

With five boys comes violence; there’s just no way around it. They make guns out of jumbo crayons or potatoes, or just their damn fingers. They play violent games of their own devising, so I can’t just expect my kids not to indulge at all. For quite a while I tried to keep up with all the videos, DVDs, games, iTunes downloads, and other media streaming into my kids’ heads. This was a full-time job. Eventually I decided that I would check in every once in awhile, but that I wasn’t going to let it drive me crazy. Denying the boys these outlets just makes them forbidden fruit. I would rather they learn to make choices and set limits for themselves. There are elements of pop culture that are violent and cruel, fast paced and sexual, but it’s their culture; who am I to deny it to them? My mom let me watch Love, American Style.

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