My daughter came home from school the other day to see me playing Paper Mario 2 on my Gamecube. If you’re not familiar, Paper Mario is a game based in the Super Mario world, and an Gamecube is the second-to-latest Nintendo. If you don’t know who Mario is, click here for a more suitable browsing experience.
Anyways, she comes into the living room to see me beating up on poor Bowser yet again and says to me, “Daddy, that’s not nice!” I began to explain to her the evils of Bowser and his Koopas and the virtues of Mario and the gang when I remembered the following fact: in the original Super Mario Brothers, all those blocks that you are breaking were formerly peaceful residents of the Mushroom Kingdom, turned bricky by the evil Bowser. It then occurred to me that maybe Mario was the bad guy because he was killing the transformed Mushroomese, and maybe the Koopas, Goombas, and Hammer Brothers were simply trying to stop his pasta-fueled murderous rampage.
Instead, I simply said, “You’re right, Bug” and turned off the Gamecube. This requires more thought.
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December 31st, 2006 at 11:43 am
whew, way out of my league!
good luck keeping up exhibiting the good example for the kid. all I know is that my folks put being a good example for their brood ahead of their own fun, to a degree.
January 2nd, 2007 at 9:52 am
I prefer to find a happy balance. I try to set a good example when I can, but I don’t want to seem like a completely different person then who I am to my child. However, I’d prefer not to have her pick up my bad habits. It’s not easy to find a middle ground.