Sometimes when I put my kids to bed at night, I like to tell them stories of the olden times. As for how, so far back, instead of having every movie ever made on a device in our pocket, we had a place called XtraVision, where a small portion of the movies and games playing video games, lying on a disc. They ask what is a plate. Well, a disc so much like the ones in the box in the barn, all of Dad’s beloved music has been deemed so inaudible that it can’t be kept in the house.
The kids couldn’t believe it – not about my taste in music, which they told me was just noise, but the idea of walking to a store, looking at pressurized boxes. film poster on the cover, pick one out, get a disc (or even older, a tape), pay for it, and then have to return it within 24 hours. They really couldn’t believe that I lived in such an unenlightened age. I could also tell them about Buster Keaton and the appearance of the talkers, or use the beetle’s husk to paint a bison on their bedroom wall.
They even struggle to understand TV channels, commercials, or the idea that you might have to stick to a schedule rather than watch whatever you want, whenever you want. They enjoy an extraordinary amount of privilege, but they cannot see it. For them, laggy games or videos that don’t load in a split second are real difficulties.
You would think that in a more connected age, they would develop a greater understanding of our world and how it works. After all, with two older kids telling me TikTok is flooded with streamers from the streets of Kyiv, you’d think they’d have a better understanding of the horrors of war. Obviously not.
When I brought one of my son’s friends home, they were chatting in the back about Ukraine and wondering if Call Of Duty can launch the Siege of Kyiv DLC. Despite flooding their digital realms about the conflict, it’s no longer real to them because the war happened to me when I was their age, recruiting Platoon on VHS in your local video store, play BUTionic Commando and think that war seems like a joke.
The current situation is all strangely familiar, even lying awake at night, like when I was 13, and wondering about the possibility of nuclear war and mutual destruction.
My three boys all love playing soldiers, roaming around the house and out in the garden with their Nerf guns, making dramatic splashes and drops to the ground. There is a point that I wonder – is this nature or is this nurture? Where do boys get wartime love? And what happens when they grow up?
This isn’t a plea for the kids to say goodbye to their weapons and toss all their Nerf guns in the recycling bin (that would be great since their foam bullets wouldn’t clog the hoover), but it’s more like as central masculinity about faking violence might not be such a good idea.
I’m not saying I’ve evolved to a meditative state of peace – I still enjoy playing Call Of Duty With my eldest son, he and I still watch war movies together, but when a real war hits the house, you start to think that maybe war shouldn’t be something we act out. But it is hard for all of us not to be enthralled by the Ukraine situation. Our social media is inundated with it, and after two years of a pandemic that threatens our species, it is at least a change that puts our lives at risk by a war not far away. could get very close if ICBMs start humming overhead.
Technology has made it all very instantaneous, but our doomsday reel is still just that – scrolling, scrolling, of past absolute carnage. To combat feeling useless – and knowing that being helpful can mean signing up and heading to the front lines – I donated some funds to UNHCR. It’s a pretty small amount but it’s something, and it makes me feel a little less depressed about raising boys who dream about war.
