Autobiography
Gamer Mum
I’m a gamer mum. Gaming is how I maintain connection with my daughter and her friends.
I’ve been told by friends with older kids that I have to learn how to drive. They said that’s when I can listen in on the kids’ conversations as they get driven around. They said it’s the way to have non-confrontational conversations with your kid because you’re not looking at them while you’re driving.
But I see gaming with my daughter and her friends as the gamer equivalent to having a conversation in a car.
I’ve been a gamer for a long time. I started playing computer games in the mid 80s as a teenager, when computers were booted from a floppy disk on one drive and the game was run from another floppy disk. I spent long happy hours playing games from Tetris, to Jedi Knight, to Tomb Raider.
Flash forward 15 years later, in 2001. I was in my late 20s. I pressed print on my Masters research thesis. It was time to start adulting and look for a job. Computer gaming felt like it was something younger people did. While nobody ever said out loud that adults shouldn’t be playing computer games, it definitely felt like it. Especially in New Zealand where the people loved the great outdoors, and they seemed to expect that you want to go with them on tramps ( hikes for my friends in the Northern hemisphere). My Kiwi boyfriend back then couldn’t understand why I’d rather stay home instead of going to the beach with him and his friends. Being a new migrant to the country, I wanted to fit in.
I buckled. I stopped gaming. Computers became a tool for work, to be productive and industrious. Gaming did not fall into that space. I did what society expected me to do: graduated, got a job, got married and started a family. My daughter was born in 2008.
Jaime is a true digital native. When I bought an iPad2 in 2011, she deftly navigated the apps and games on it. She giggled at the photos she took of us on Photobooth. She happily played the puzzles on her favourite Thomas the Tank Engine apps, or played Angry Birds alongside another digital native friend.
In 2013, when Jaime was almost 5 years old, she heard about Minecraft from a friend with an older brother. She wanted to play too. I figured she needed someone to play with and to help her navigate the gaming world. So I bought us Minecraft accounts, and we explored the game together.
The objective in Minecraft is to gather resources, fight the bad guys, and get to the End world where you fight the Ender Dragon. Gamers can play locally on their computers, or on servers with others around the world.
Nine years since we started our Minecraft adventures we still play together. These days we play on a map called Skyblock on the Hypixel server.
We started on Skyblock about three years ago. She played Skyblock before me and taught me what to do. Then when one of her friends heard I was on Skyblock, they took over in the role of ‘teaching Jaime’s mum how to play Skyblock.’
I became known among Jaime’s friends as the gamer mum. They added me as their friend on the server. I’d get invited to games that they were on and we’d do things together in the game. They’d teach me how to combat properly, or how to clutch (jumping across a gap and placing a block at the same time to land on).
I became one of them. I’m the gamer mum who plays Minecraft with my teenage daughter and her friends.
When COVID hit in 2020, one of her friends had to quarantine at home because of a COVID exposure. Bored, they’d ask if I could come on and do a few dungeon or dragon runs with them in Skyblock. They had somebody to talk to through the in-game chat. We’d talk about books we were reading or Minecraft YouTuber videos we’ve watched. We’d analyse strategies they used in the videos. We were having genuine conversations while playing the game.
Late 2021, one of Jaime’s friends was going through some tough times with a relationship break up. I discovered that life is tough as a teenager these days. Jaime was worried about them. She texted them asking if they were OK. “I’m talking to your mum. She’s my therapist.” She came from the room next door and asked. I pointed at my screen and she saw the conversation we were having in-game. They just wanted somebody to talk to. I just happened to be that somebody because I was online in the game. We were doing things on Skyblock and they didn’t feel pressured. There was never any awkward silence because the game was still there. The next day we were on Skyblock again. They were feeling better. We were still having a conversation in the game, but only about the game. I obliged.
In 2021 I played 1068 hours of Hypixel. This is an insane amount of time. It’s 45 full days; or an average of three hours every single day of the year. I sent more than 1,800 chat messages, mostly to my daughter and her friends.
Three hours a day doesn’t seem that much if it’s seen as time spent conversing with kids when they need it: whether it’s because they are stuck at home or because they need another adult to talk to who’s not their parent.
The parents know that I play Minecraft with their kids. Some can’t believe it, some think it’s hilarious that I play at all. I’m comfortable with my gamer identity these days. I’m happy to have this connection with Jaime and her friends. I know that gaming is much more than a kid playing alone like it was when I was playing Tetris alone on the IBM 5155 in the mid 80s. Computer games these days is a team activity.
Her friends thinks she’s lucky to have a gamer mum. The ones who have played with me use it as a flex. I’m grateful to have gained the trust of these teenagers, and hope it continues as they grow into young adults.
Originally published at https://www.lafisal.live on March 22, 2022.
