Game On

“Boo-Ya!”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!!!”

“In your FACE!!!!”

Sound familiar?  Just another friendly family game night.  It’s amazing how much trash gets talked with a high-stakes game of UNO.  Or when the Old Maid deck gets dealt.  And in our home, when the dice are rolled and the marbles moved during Murder, our homemade version of Sorry, verbal carnage (G-rated!) abounds.  Yup, friendly games can turn friendly families into fierce-tongued families.

It wasn’t my competitive streak that caused the card game Beat the Parents to catch my eye at the store, but the clever word play on the movie title, “Meet the Parents.”  When I read on the glossy, uncreased box that the object was to pit kids against their parents in a game of trivia (the parents field questions about kid-world and vice versa) and figured we all may learn a little something, I had to buy it.  Our kids would love it based on the name alone.

And a hit it was.  Not just because of the title but also for the reason that the kids beat the pants off my husband and me.  We haven’t won a round yet.  Did we adults know what Elmo’s favorite food is?  No.  Did our kids know which side of the road the British drive on?  Yes.  And on and on each game went.  The adults didn’t know squat and the kids knew it all.  As humiliating as it was to hear our kids holler, “Losers!!!! (which sounded more like ‘laaa-ewww-zaaahs!’)” it was even more humbling to realize our kids pay more attention to the adult world than we apparently do to theirs.

I had thought, being raised on a steady diet of Big Bird and Oscar, I knew Sesame Street like the back of my hand.  So I rarely sat down with my kids to watch it.  And when the kids made mention of Katy Perry  (whom they supposedly listened to during art class) I couldn’t begin to name any songs on her latest soundtrack.  (Only recently did I learn “Firework” is to her credit.)  But my kids would not be confused by the roadways in London and knew immediately what the body of the Sphinx looks like.

Boo-ya.

While my husband and I have learned many interesting facts in “Beat the Parents”  the most important learning point has been to ask more questions of our kids.  And not just the ones printed on the game cards.  Given that we already ask the questions we need to to keep them safe and happy and healthy, we need to ask about everything else.  The seemingly trivial things.  Because those things are not unimportant to our kids.

In your face, lack of kid-world knowledge.  Consider yourself the “laaa-ewww-zaaah.”

Acknowledgements:

Hasbro, Sorry. 2013.

Mattel, Inc., UNO. 2001.

Patch Products, Inc., Old Maid. 2004.

Spin Master Ltd., Beat The Parents. 2011.

And last but certainly not least, my grandmother.  She sanded the marble holes for the Murder board herself.