A Bit of Wisdom

When our youngest son was a teenager, I worried because he played video games that I thought were too violent.  Too shoot-em-up-dead-and-splat-goes-their-blood violent.  How would those games affect him?  Make him belligerent? Insolent?  Would his light and happy, sweet and loving nature morph into a dark, brooding, rebellious one?  I am glad to report that he is now a sweet twenty-something, married to a wonderful woman and the father of a darling little boy.  He has turned out just fine.  (My heart is relieved.)

Reflecting on my worries about the effect of the video games on my son makes me reminiscent of the time I was a freshman in high school.   Outside the door of the school’s library was a book machine.  Instead of selling candy, it sold paperback books.  I saved my lunch money (thirty-five cents for a meal and $1.75 for a week) to buy books from the book machine.

By happenstance, I bought The ABC Murders by Agatha Christi.  I loved it.  Every week, I eagerly checked the book machine.  Were there new Agatha Christi books for me to buy?  I realized I was hooked.  Hooked on Agatha.  All in all, I bought twenty-eight of her novels.

This started a love affair with murder mysteries that has lasted my entire life.  Not with the blood, gore, and violent mysteries — the whodunit ones of suspense and intrigue instead.  Throughout high school, I branched out to other murder mystery writers making murder mysteries my constant reading diet.

At that time, my mother fretted and worried about the content of my reading choices.  Would Nina become a murderer?  As a teenager, I thought her fears were silly.  I knew that I wasn’t heading down the road to becoming an incarcerated taker-of-innocent-lives.  I stayed my normal, perky self.

(Who’s that sniggering in the background?  Is that you, husband dear?  You’d better stop . . . if you know what’s good for you . . .)

But when I became a mother, and had a child who was absorbed in violent video games (too absorbed for my peace of mind), I fretted.  I worried.  I finally understood my mother.

Here’s a bit of wisdom I learned through all of this:  Not to worry.

Since I didn’t commence to have any criminal or delinquent behavior, my mother needn’t have worried.  Since my son didn’t commence to exhibit criminal or delinquent behavior, I needn’t have worried.

So, when the son of my sweet twenty-something son is a teenager, and he (my grandson) does something similar that worries his parents, I’ll tell them,  Don’t worry.

That is, as long as my grandson doesn’t develop criminal or delinquent behavior!