When I heard my fellow mothers say that playing board games with your children is a valuable way to interact with pre-adolescents and impart values, I decided that sounded like something I should be doing, too. So I went out and purchased the Game of Life to play with my children, and found that the Milton Bradley classic pretty much resembles the games in my life.
My control-freak 10-year-old son insisted on being the banker and would not let anyone make a decision without first hearing what he thought they should do. And I think he was embezzling.
My hypersensitive 8-year-old daughter was in an angry mood throughout, because she was only an "artist" making $30,000 a year. So when her brother told her it was because she had chosen the "career" path instead of the "college" path, she threw what little money she had across the table at him and accused him of saying that she was too dumb to go to college.
Then she said Joe was a messy banker and all the money was mixed up, and I casually mentioned the floor in her bedroom, and she quit and stormed off.
At this point my path-of-least-resistance spouse arrived from work, heard my daughter slam her bedroom door, saw the "What did I do?" look on my son's face that has become so familiar and the Game of Life money scattered all over the floor and asked me if I didn't find the real thing challenging enough.
"My friends say playing board games with your children keeps the lines of communication open," I said, and felt like I was spitting into the wind.
Unlike Barbie games, board games have rules, and your 8-year-old cannot rebuke you with "No, Mom, that's not how I do it" as you feebly try to enter her fantasy world. And unlike video games, no skill is required and you won't get motion-sick.
"It is an incentive for them to interact with me when otherwise they might not bother," said my friend Jean. "I'm not the most popular person in their lives."
"I started playing Monopoly with my kids so I could teach them values, and then I saw what kind of values they had and it really upset me," said my friend Susan. "My son is ruthless, and my daughter is so compliant that she gives him her properties."
Jean said its a good way to get to know her children's friends, and Susan said at least they weren't watching TV, but there is something more here, too, I think.
I know our children find it hard to believe we once played games that did not require electricity or a four-color monitor, but board games played with friends or parents are a rich cache of memories for us. Maybe we'd like our children to have those memories, too.
I remember playing Sorry with Cindy Pinkerton's mother and the fearful thrill I got sending an adult back to start. I remember playing Park and Shop, a game of errands that is now extinct, for hours with my friends, and I believe I am as efficient as I am ## today because of that game.
"I have tremendously fond memories of game-playing as a family on Sunday afternoon," says a friend. "My conclusion is that it is much more fun for the kids than it is for the parents."
It occurred to me that the video age and computer games might have sent board games to the dusty shelves of antique toy stores, but that is not so.
True, Monopoly is available as a video game and will be out next fall on CD-ROM, but a spokeswoman for Parker Brothers says the classic board games have shown tremendous staying power. Going around a board may be a snore to kids who need a "mission" or a game with ever-increasing skill levels, but it is not the kids who are buying board games. It is their parents.
"The glory of the classic games is in introducing them to your kids," said Carol Steinkrauss of Parker Brothers. "The people who are raising kids now, these games meant something to them. We came to the table an equal player and we could bankrupt Dad or send Mom to jail. Now we can share those memories with our kids."
I am thinking of playing Clue next with my children, although I worry about how "a candlestick in the library" will manifest itself in their sibling rivalry.
If the interaction produced by these board games strengthens the bonds between us, fine. But perhaps my friend Betsy has it right. "We want them to like board games because we did. Because it will mean they are just like us and the world will not have changed so much."