How do you balance game and family?
by Chad King 
Aug 10th 2011 at 8:00PM
No matter your walk of life, we all have time management challenges. Within that spectrum, there are the most fortunate who have personal assistants to manage their next nose hair removal appointment, to those dealing with significant life-and-death issues that none of us would ever want to contemplate. However, within the WoW community, there is a sizeable portion of us who are full-time working parents. Gone are my early college days (early '90s, egad!) when I used to slack off and play MUDs (Valhalla, anyone?) all night long without a care in the world ... I could always blow off a class or two and still pass.
With kids, it's a completely different ballgame. Not only do young children demand your attention after you get home from a long day at work, it's your responsibility to spend quality time with them. Make them a healthy dinner, read books with them, play games, go outside for a walk, give them a bath, watch a ballgame with them. These are precious moments that I savor. However, this added responsibility can add a lot of stress. It's therapeutic to expunge it when we actually have a free moment. Gaming is one of my releases. I feel fortunate that I can actually squeeze in two raiding nights a week, but that's it for me. With raiding, there is a schedule that my wife and family are comfortable with. It's how I choose to prioritize my WoW goals. I can't run heroics. Dailies, yeah, right -- it's either bath time, a tee ball game, or we need to rush our toddler to the doctor because his diaper is full of purple poo. Stay out of the purple poo, BTW.
As a parent, how do you prioritize in-game goals?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Professor Orc Aug 10th 2011 8:09PM
Great article for the first ever Dinner Topic!
ady5078 Aug 11th 2011 11:42AM
They do these every once in a while. These are the Seed articles, the ones that are not published daily but do come every once in a while. In addition to that, there is the daily user-written Breakfast Topic.
This post says:
"This post has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages."
Breakfast Topics say:
"This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages."
As you see, they are similar, but different.
gobuywow Aug 10th 2011 8:09PM
As for me, game is just for relax and fun, family is always in the first place in my heart. I will give up game if it is needed.
Brouck Aug 10th 2011 8:19PM
Easy, I'm responsible, I play when my family is in bed.
Teiwaz Aug 10th 2011 8:21PM
The Guild's Clara comes to mind. "Tomorrow mommy is going to teach you to use the microwave!"
Cowboy Aug 10th 2011 8:20PM
This a touchy subject, simply bc it is a very REAL subject that can cause some serious inner turmoil. I am the father of a 8,4 and 2 week old, all boys. I am also an engineer for an international company. So I have some serious responsibilities yet I love gaming and wow is my game of choice. I have told myself that maybe I should stop playing but I feel that if I was to do so it would be the only true "me" thing I really have left. I dont party I have no friends outside of coworkers and my kids friends parents, I don't have any real "hobbies" outside of m few hours of wow a week. I just don't have the time. I could spend several hours at a time playing but I don't. I try to schedule my time around my sons bed time and late weekend nights. The downside is my lack of making commitments in the game, I have played for 5 years I am very skilled with my class, yet I have no chance of ever downing the latest boss or grabbing a prestigious pvp title simply because those things call for commitment to others and I have very real responsibilities and commitments outside of the game. This is a bit depressing I will admit, I love wow and really want to be more involved with the epic side of the game yet I cannot. But never the less knave a beautiful family and good job and still can pwn noobs on the weekend :) ...... Grats to all who share my burden.
BrentJackson Aug 11th 2011 2:51AM
I'm right there with ya. I have a five year old autistic son, a full time nursing job, and I am working on my masters degree. My playtime comes and goes at random times, so no hardcore raid guild for me for now.
Aaron Aug 12th 2011 10:24AM
+1 for working gamer dads with no lives. We should start a guild! Although I doubt we'd get much raiding done.
I've got a 12 and 8 boys and a 10 girl and work 9 to 10 hour days for a big company. I get home and do whatever we have that night, rugby training two nights a week and dance anotther other two, we do sit down dinners (everyone always at the table, unless it's take out) then homeworks, then maybe we have TV, boardgames or video game time to chillax before bed. We've got two WoW accounts, one for me and my daughter and one for the two boys so we can all do some leveling together here and there. I'm a pretty avid gamer but I try and put family first there's plenty of nights I'm too tired to even look at a screen. Other nights I'm bad though, hiding away in my man cave for four or five solid hours with a new game I've been anticipating, but my kids make me suffer for it the next day with a day trip to the pool or fishing.
It's nice when they get old enough for Halo splitscreen nights and WoW sessions. I've got a high level Rogue and my older boy has a hunter and we game talk each other over dinner. In fact this is the conversation I just had over the phone before I read this article, "hey dad",
"hey monkey butt head how ya feeling, you sound terrible",
"Yeah, I feel pretty sick",
"Hey I got my first Mysterious Egg of the Oracles last night so we'll see what hatches in three days",
"oh cool, my Boom Chicken just hit 48"
"If you get bored leveling you can do my Argent Tournament dailies for me, try mounted combat?",
"yeah I'll do that",
"okay bye I love you"
"bye".
I love having gamer kids.
razion Aug 10th 2011 8:28PM
It depends on your family--but if you know you have a family that can have these kinds of 'regular minor emergencies' that will require you to leave what you're doing, it's best to not get involved in activities that you can't easily pull yourself out of--things like raiding that take a lot of time investment probably isn't somewhere up your alley.
Of course, you can plan your way around it.
If you are in that kind of situation, try to find yourself a raiding guild that is understanding of your situation, and can replace you on the fly at a whim with a suitable replacement. Large, accommodating, mature guilds are best for this, I find, and while I don't have a family, I do play with many who do have families that they have to provide for, and we support them accordingly.
Even so, things can come up in the middle of an activity, no matter how well you plan. And the best way to make yourself available is to just, plain and simple, BE AVAILABLE. Even if that means only doing quests, working on small-time achievements, pet/mount hunting, trade-skills, alts, World PvP or what-have you, those are the activities I find to require the least amount of time investment, allowing one to get out immediately when they need to.
Plan if you can, but otherwise just be available to the point where it isn't an issue in the first point, is my best advice.
razion Aug 10th 2011 8:32PM
"Point in the first point". Real smooth, Raz. Real smooth...
Waft Aug 10th 2011 8:35PM
Quite smooth indeed?
Starlin Aug 10th 2011 8:32PM
The only rule I have is that if any family member is awake and at home, I don't play. I still get in 5 or 6 hours of raiding a week as well as capping my valor points in heroics. Real life comes first.
Sakirsha Aug 11th 2011 5:33AM
Yep, before I started working late evenings, the tyke was always in bed by 5:30 pm, leaving me 6 hours of play or movie-with-hubby time a night before going to bed at a decent hour to be awake for Tyke. Having the game is quite a relief, hubby and I run out of good movies to watch every once in a while, and with a three year old in bed it's not like we can go out on the town when we're bored.
sarah Aug 10th 2011 8:34PM
My husband and I both play. He used to tank, but switched to DPS so we could share a DPS slot. We take turns raiding in a single shared slot, and the other parent is responsible for the children on that night. We have two kids with ASD, so getting out and socialising isn't really an option for us so WoW has become our main social life. We actually know most of our guildies either in person or via Facebook. Our guild does progression, but in a fairly casual manner (currently 4/7 10N) so if we need to pause the raid to attend to children between fights that's tolerated, particularly on the occasional nights where two other raiders are unavailable and we both get called in (we have a team of 11, where we are counted as a single unit, so one spare). Raids don't start until 7:45 so usually the kids are either in bed or about to go to bed anyway, and then the other partner does dailies, levels an alt, or gets some housework done if we're behind.
Sarah Bee Aug 10th 2011 8:49PM
Personally, I always found it a little ... odd ... when I talk to people that have family playing WoW. I haven't got anything against the idea, but for me personally I don't like mixing things like that. Work is work, family is family and your personal life is your personal life. Don't like it when those groups interact with each-other.
Not for me, but if it works for some people then great!
Frozenflood Aug 10th 2011 9:13PM
Clones of course!
Tushar Bharadia Aug 10th 2011 9:13PM
"Balance" is for Druids.
Strawder Aug 10th 2011 9:14PM
I get to play two nights a week, on my nights off. The wife and I both play. On those nights, neither of us get on until the kids are asleep, and one of us will put the kids to bed while the other hops on to greet the guild, etc. Once the kids are asleep, the other joins. She turns in about 1am, and since I work all night the other 5 days of the week, I usually stay up later.
WoW is pretty much our only social option since we don't have much money and our kids are really small. Two WoW accounts a month is cheaper than one night at the movies. And it's the only thing we allow ourselves as parents; the rest goes to the kids and keeping bills paid.
On average, I get about 12 hours a week, consisting of two nights of 6 hours each, in-game. Occasionally, if the kids are watching a movie, I'll hop on and play Auction House, because it's not something involving or that I have to take my focus off of them much. But I don't do that too much.
Jon Aug 10th 2011 11:26PM
One word. Condoms!
Aaron Aug 12th 2011 10:24AM
Two words, "They break".
It'll never happen to me you say? Happened twice to me, also, for giggles, we learned my wife is physically immune to all forms of the pill. This is why I had a vasectomy at age 26 :-D