An inevitable part of the circle of life is that parents will inevitably attempt to coerce their children into doing something they used to do all in the name of living vicariously through them. That’s only partially a joke; I think there’s something intrinsically hardwired into adults that deludes them into thinking their offspring give a damn about what they did when they were growing up.

Gamers are no exception.

In fact, I think we video-game enthusiasts can be a bit too bombastic when it comes to bestowing the golden joystick to their kin. Whether it’s with Pac-Man, Combat, or the ubiquitous Super Mario Bros., we always seem to have a master plan to guiding our kids into pure digital escapism. I’ve seen entire blogs of meticulously planned road maps for their youngster to be knighted a gamer. Some of them are thoughtful, like a history lesson; others are scary representations of why some of us need to rethink what it is we’re exposing our children to. 

The truth is, I have a simple secret that to share with you all that may have a stronger impact than goading them into bombing every wall in Zelda: Let them discover video games on their own.

That’s probably a hard pill to swallow for people who literally have a rubric typed up on their PC right now, but I’ve learned this lesson over 11 years of parenting. It’s easy to build an image of yourself in your mind that you are probably the coolest fucking parent in the whole world because you're a hobbyist of an adolescent-centric activity. You would have killed to have parents such as yourself. But that’s the same thing your folks thought when they tried to dupe you into loving whatever ideology they believed in.

My oldest son was overexposed to gaming at a young age. In his early years, I owned all the major systems. I even went so far as to buy him a Nintendo DS when they were fresh, hip, and about the size of a box of checkbooks. There were plenty of compilations out at that point, and I felt he could play the majority of the classics and “catch up” on a backlog of my creation. Hell, he could invite his friends over, and I’d teach them all.

But he didn’t care. Not even a little bit.

So I let it go.

A few weeks ago, he inadvertently came across my Steam account. Perusing the small list of games I had on there, he quickly honed in and asked if he could play Torchlight.

“It sort of reminds me of Warcraft 3,” he said.

“Wait, what!?” I blurted.

“I play Warcraft 3 all the time at Boy’s Club," he told me. "Is this anything like that?”

Six years after I gave up the proverbial ghost, I come to find out my son may have fallen deeper into the rabbit hole than even I had. I told him that it wasn’t much like Warcraft 3, but it was pretty easy to get into and he should give it a go. Two hours later, he’d created multiple saves using all the different classes and raised most of them to level 10. He’d figured out all of the keyboard shortcuts and game mechanics without so much as looking at a manual or FAQ. He’d fallen in love with a high-fantasy town on the outskirts of a mine that so happened to double as an entrance to adventure.

It was supremely satisfying from my end to watch him grow into the resourceful and engaged 10-year-old that I was, having that same epiphany with Torchlight as I did with Zelda 2. And it all happened without my say, without me butting in or forcibly showing him why it’s such a great hobby.

What may be an even more interesting development is how my younger son has started to dabble in gaming as well. 

Over Christmas, my mother-in-law went nuts with a Toys "R" Us “buy one, get one free” sale. She got my oldest son a game for that much maligned DS I mentioned earlier and thought that it’d be neat if my two-year-old got a game as well. To make a long story short, every time I’m doing our copious amount of laundry during the weekend, he grabs the DS, plunks himself on the bed, and plays Sesame Street: Elmo’s A-to-Zoo Adventure. While it may be tempting to scoff that a Muppet with a penchant for being tickled is a far cry from a heroic yet tubby plumber, the fact of the matter is he is starting games at an extremely young age. 

Granted, all the game subsists of is tapping correct answers to whatever it is Elmo is asking, but what makes that any different than what we do?

What’s important is he’s having fun with an interactive piece of media on his own grounds. It’s important to note that both my kids have found their own way into gaming, whether in a more traditional sense or a casual one. Seeing my two-year-old grin from ear to ear warms the cockles of my heart just as much as watching my ten-year-old play Torchlight. They found out how awesome gaming is on their own, without me telling them.

Like with just about anything else in life, parents should let their kids find their own way. Guide them, adjust their moral barometers every now and then, teach them -- but in the end, let them do it. You don’t need to live vicariously through them; you’re just as capable now at twiddling your thumbs in front of a television as you were when you were a kid. And if they do become gamers, you'll know that they chose to do so themselves. And how much more satisfying is that?