I grew up in a Christian home so there were always some pretty solid rules and guidelines in place.
I couldn’t watch rated R movies.
I couldn’t spend the night at a friend’s house on a school night.
I couldn’t play Nintendo because my parents didn’t buy me one.
There were all sorts of rules and things from which I was prohibited. Some of the rules I can understand and they still make a lot of sense. There are a few, though, which still seem a little unreasonable.
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat was first released on the Sega Genesis in 1993. It was quite the controversial game with its depictions of gore and violence. In 1993 the digitized graphics were cutting edge and a decapitation in a video game had never looked so real. Obviously this game was banned at my house but I didn’t have a Genesis so it didn’t matter. My friend, Phil, did have a Genesis and even though the game was also banned at his house, we still played it. Prohibiting Mortal Kombat was unreasonable because I played it and I turned out all right. I have never killed anyone, entered a fighting tournament or pulled off my mask and spit fire on someone. If anything, Mortal Kombat helped me make good choices because I knew I didn’t want to be like Johnny Cage.
Friends
Friends is one of the most popular television shows of all time and I know almost nothing about it. I couldn’t remember what Ross’ last name was once and I had to look it up on Wikipedia. I can kind of understand why my mom wouldn’t let me watch Friends when it first premiered. I was 13 and the show did talk a lot about sex. Throughout high school, though, I still wasn’t allowed to watch Friends even though I had already decided that people like Joey and Rachel weren’t going to be my sexual role models. So to this day I am tremendously stunted in my Friends knowledge. Whenever my group of friends sits around and quotes Friends, I feel like I’m the nerd on the outside again without any friends.
Dungeons and Dragons
I would like to say that my parents tried their best to keep me from becoming a nerd. They told me that I couldn’t play Dungeons and Dragons but they didn’t keep me from playing the Star Wars pen and paper role-playing game. So their prohibition of my playing Dungeons and Dragons didn’t have anything to do with limiting my nerdiness. Instead, I think their prohibition had to do more with self-preservation. There was a story about a kid who got so deep into his Dungeons and Dragons character that he could no longer discern reality from the game. In his Dungeons and Dragons induced haze, the kid killed his parents. I’ve played a lot of role-playing games and I’ve never confused the game with reality. Even when I was playing as an Ewok assassin, I never once grabbed a spear and tried to stab someone.
While I appreciate the boundaries that my parents set up for me, some of them seemed a little too stringent. Not only were they stringent, but not getting to watch Friends has left me socially stunted. However, banning Dungeons and Dragons kept me from falling too deeply into a world of dungeon masters, 12-sided die and clerics named after Old Testament prophets.
Thanks mom and dad.
What rules did you have that now seem unreasonable?
Leave a Comment