Level Headed

Hungry Horace by William Tang ca. 1982

My 7 year old son has just got into computer games. It is a little scary how quickly it has turned into an obsession. But I can remember quite clearly my own fascination with computer games, so should I or can I really stop him?

I was older than him when I started getting into computers. It was the early 80s, and I was given a ZX Spectrum for my twelfth birthday in 1982. I used to buy computer magazines with pages of code on them, comprising of numbers, dots and dashes. I would spend hours typing these into my computer, even though the result would be a stick figure moving across the screen. After 4 hours of imputing, the computer might show up an error, which meant I had made a tiny mistake somewhere. Then I would have to scour through what I had done once more to find the mistake. Sometimes I never found it and had to give up.

Games were on tape cassettes. You would have to put them into a cassette recorder which was plugged into the computer. The screen would flash red to blue to the sound of a wavering high pitched frequency until, after about ten minutes or so, the game might load, if you were lucky.

A few weeks ago I showed my son an online computer game after he entreated me for weeks to play. Not long after this he was able to type in the website by himself and go to the game he wanted. Then on Saturday, I got up in the morning to see him and my 3 year old in front of the computer playing "The Hobbit", a computer game tied in with the Lego website. It is quite violent. Gandolf, the main character clubs everything in his path to the last inches of their pixels and I wonder if I have made the right decision. I see my son animatedly thrashing the keyboard. How quickly he has mastered this game, I think, and how natural it has come to him to play computer games.  What is happening now in his brain, I wonder? As he pulverises goblins, is the thrill in hitting the target no more harmful that hitting a target in archery, say, bringing with it a sense of achievement or satisfaction? Or is there there danger that being the master of this digitalised kingdom may give him a sense of power that he is unable to achieve in the real world, and thus make him feel safer sitting in front of a computer screen.

The scary thing is that in a few minutes I am as deeply enthralled by the game as he is. You cannot pause the game, and there are three levels to play. The soundtrack to the game comes back to me at other times of the day. I even find myself humming it as I go down the street. If you ever hear the music to the Hobbit game on the lego site, then you will find the idea of a 42 year old singing this in public hilarious.

The games that I played as a child come flooding back to me as I watch my son playing his. My favourite game, which looks so primitive now by today's standards was  Horace goes skiing. A friendly hooded character wants to go skiing. But first he has to cross a busy motorway to get to the ski slope and not get run over and taken away in an ambulance. Then he gets to ski down a slalom track. Not violent, but not exactly green cross code either. I don't know how this game affected me. I didn't feel the compulsion to run across busy roads after having played it, or else I wouldn't be here today. I don't believe that what is enacted on the screen desensitises children from rash behaviour or violence for that matter.

I do think though that those hours of playing computer games did perhaps have a negative affect on me, though I cannot be sure. The computer game used up quite a lot of my time where I could have been doing more creative hands-on activities. It created a routine and boundaries that existed within the game, and not which I could learn to develop myself. I had the feeling that I was doing a lot, whereas I was just sitting in front of the screen.

Today it is impossible to think games, computing and the digital world away. I just hope that I can help my son strike a balance between these two, very real, worlds.

What is your experience of your kids computer playing habits?

My first computer, ZX Spectrum from 1982

creative quandary

dining table with printmaking equipment

It feels slightly ironic that I have come here to the Mumsnet Blogfest when my two kids and my husband are back in Germany! Still, it is the first time I have been away by myself for ages and I get precious time to spend with my friends and family back in London. But the question remains: How do you balance your creative ambitions with family life.

I am staying at my mum's who is a printmaker. Her studio is in the house. When I was growing up it didn't strike me as odd that there were trays of acid in the bathroom (for etching ), for example. There were plus and minuses from our perspective that her work space was in the home. Us kids were encouraged to make lino cuts and etchings, which was fun. On the other hand, I felt it was hard for my mum to switch off from the work, especially if a print wasn't going her way. That is the problem of having your work space at home. It is hard to create a divide between your home and work life.

If your job involves being creative like an artist, where the measure of your success is not so easily defined and the output is more personal then this can be even harder. You may also have to justify to yourself and to others that what you are doing is valid, especially if you are not earning much money through your art. If you can manage that, then you may need to find the headspace in order to be creative. I have read with admiration about authors who have written books during their babies naps, for example. (I was napping through my babies naps, though!)

litho press and bookshelf

I would like to do a survey amongst people who are artists and who have families. How do they strike a balance with their art and family life? Can they involve their kids in the process, or do they need for "a room of ones own", like Virginia Woolf. Also, how do they manage between creative thinking, where you really need the luxury of time to develop ideas and the hectic schedule of family life. A female friend of mine organises family life as well as teaching at a University and developing her own art work. Her husband, who is also self employed, is away with work a lot. She said she doesn't touch the housework until the kids come back from school. It is the only way she can get things done.

Another artist friend of mine has recently taken a self imposed sabbatical. When she originally told me this I said, rather insensitively I think, I"ll believe it when I see it. I meant it in a positive way, because she is one of the most dynamic and energetic people I know. She came to Bielefeld and in less that two years embarked on a PHD, attended conferences and formed an art group. This kind of drive is often what helps you to survive as an artist, even when you have two young kids and are a trailing spouse with an uncertain future. I can imagine that it may be difficult to put aside this drive to focus on other priorities. You can read about her sabbatical here.

It is very hard to strike the balance between work and family as a freelancer or an artist.

I  discovered this when I was working from home as a translator. If you don't respond to requests and opportunities from the outside then you may kick yourself for missing out. But if you take everything on then it can easily get too much, and your health suffers and this effects your family.

printmaking table arial view

I question myself on a regular basis. How much is too much? Will I overstretch myself if I take on this job.  I also love writing my blog, which I see as being a creative outlet for me. I also question the time taken to write it, as I now question the time I have taken to come to London on my own. 

At the same time I am glad that I have a mum who has followed her artistic career, despite being a divorced mother bringing up four children singlehandedly  and can see if you fulfil your own creative ambitions then you can still be a good mum or precisely because of that you are a good mum. 

prints in progress