Topic: Parents need to do their jobs.

[edit] Man I opened a can of worms with this rant!

There are few things that annoy me more, than out of touch baby boomers and Gen X'ers or generally older or technologically illiterate people putting the blame for bad behavior and even violence among children on things like games or the internet. As the parent they have the responsibility for raising their children. It is not Sony, or Nintendo or Disney or Facebook's job to raise your kids.

In today's day and age, everything has parental controls. But even beyond that, the parent should be adult enough that when their 8 year old kid says "I want Grand Theft Auto 5!" and you don't know what that is, to at least go on Google and see if you, the parent, think that your 8 year old is mature enough to play that game. ( I am not saying they are or aren't that is for you, the parent to decide! )

Before buying a new game, movie, album(do people still do that?) or book, for their kid, the parent needs to read the back of the box, check the rating, and know what they are giving their child. Then, if the product was not properly labelled, they can complain about it. 999/1000 times it is labelled properly. It is labelled right specifically so the company can't get sued for not labeling it! And as a parent, if you cannot understand your region's rating system, you need to do that research. I can vouch for America and Japan's systems being quite straightforward and easy to understand.

It is unreasonable of parents and news media to put the blame on game, music and TV/Movie companies when parents frequently do not bother with parental controls, ignore ratings, and do not research and understand what their children are doing.

Yet here we are, in 2018, and if anything, we have seen a resurgence in this kind of thinking. If your children are misbehaving because they learned it in a game YOU bought them, it ain't the game company's fault, it's your fault for failing in your responsibility as a parent.

Good lord I feel like an old man, not a 26 year old, making a post like this and I needed to share my thoughts. But I keep seeing stories where parents and politicians and news anchors are claiming nonsense like this. Not to mention all the studies that have disproved any real connection between games and real violence...

You can't be serious. You're expecting parents to go out there and PARENT their kids? When did they sign up for that? They have a child, and all of a sudden it's their responsibility to look after it?

People are getting less interested in guiding and teaching their children. I know someone who is seeing an increasing amount of school age children that aren't toilet trained (and I don't mean the occasional accident, which is natural).

Erm, this has been going on forever. Remember went Marlyn Manson was blamed for all the school shootings in the early 2000.

Unfortunately, people need someone to blame but themselves, and like normal, the media are the ones to inflate it. Even worse is the people who don't look into news and only listen to what "Celebraties" say.

I remember when the news and even politicians went mental over the video for Smack my B**** Up (<-- even i censor myself because of the ways nowadays) by the Prodigy. Which obviously they never saw all of it as at the end of the video it shows the person looking in the mirror and its a woman, which was brilliant and a really great song.

You are right to what you say about its up to parents, but I can't really talk as I don't have kids and never will as the world it over populated as it is.

In my opinion some parents do want their children to play rated m games and watch rated m movies. They think that their children will become stronger and will outsmart other kids that way. Those are the kind of arrogant and bossy people that like to have control over others using violence. There were a few parents like this in my town when I was a kid unfortunately. Their kids did many bad things but never gained anything good doing so since they were just bad and nothing else, theydid not outsmart anybody else.

Eat it. My kids will play what they like, when they like. What are you going to do about it?

@gcunit if that is how you want to parent your children that is your preoperative, but you don't get to turn around and blame game companies for your kid's misbehavior or even violence. The whole point of this post is that raising your children is YOUR responsibility, not Nintendo, or Disney or Facebook's responsibility.

@LuckyLand I don't agree with that reasoning, but I actually think it is reasonable to allow kids to play some content rated for older consumers. It can be a way of showing your child you trust them and some children are indeed mature enough to handle it. Especially with a good parent who teaches them from a young age that fiction is fiction and reality is reality and they aren't the same thing.

@shaneoh I love your comment and agree completely. Excellent sarcasm, excellent points.

@Bunkerneath Good points. Though we have all been raised by someone we all have enough life experience to have an opinion on this issue. Because that is what this is, a life issue. No one grows up in a vacuum alone.

2018 I really thought this was common knowledge

@1UP_MARIO It should be.

As much as I agree with your comment I still do feel games companies should do more to protect children. The instance that I think needs most attention is 'online chat', in my opinion a game that has this should only ever be an 'over 18'. In my experience online chat has included racism and untold amounts of profanity which is hardly appropriate at any age! So for companies just to leave a blatant hole for inappropriate content then they leave themselves open to the criticism

My other criticism in this area is playstation and xbox, based on my visit to my local game store You have to look pretty hard to find a game that is suitable for say under 7's. which gives out the wrong impression as gaming is a large part regarded as a kids past time.

I totally agree with you though, parents can prevent all these problems with just responsible parenting. But this world ain't like that anymore, everyone is just looking for someone else to blame!

There are Tons of Bad parents in my country.
Almost every single boys feed by shooting and wars from Star Wars & from rated 18 games / movies, then continued by more violences, more guns. How Horrible !!
I'm very sick to see such a things like that, i mean where is the humanity ?
My opinion, if we are not ready to raise a kid, Do Not Get Married !

@Anti-Matter What if I've had a kid.... out of wedlock?

Fwiw, bumping, grinding and baby-making came before your precious society, so maybe your society needs to do a better job of accommodating it in all its forms...

It's in the corner, beating the excrement out of itself.

This is madness! Parents parenting? What's that, some kind of post-victorian british working-class nightmare?! And I mean, how can I possibly be parenting if I have to work all day to earn the money to give my kid the opportunities I didn't have when I was his age?? This is insane, I'm calling the police.

Marriage = babies

Okay then? 🤔

"album(do people still do that?)"

What kind of supremely silly question is that? Of course.

Let me explain.
Some people will get married to have a child. If they are not ready in mentality to teach their kids, don't know what things that suitable for kids, don't know how to get along with their kids, then Do Not Get Married !

Because after they have kids, that will be their Responsibility to raise their kids in proper way. Don't let the kids consume Negative things by parents fault, don't torture & abuse their kids in order to make them listen to their parents, don't ever Neglect their kids by let them do whatever they want without Supervision !

If they can't raise their kids properly, i blame both of them (the parents) for getting married WITHOUT any Family oriented spirit. They might be married for different purposes, forget how to take care & teach their kids with good things. I feel sick with some parents today that really neglect their kids. I feel i want to yell at them how terrible their attitudes to neglect their kids.

@Anti-Matter

This thread was designed for you.

Yeah, and maybe the police can raise our children while they're at it. This is insane, it's like people are asking parents to juggle their responsibilities. What is this, the 1980's? Who does that any more?

@dew12333 Saying the world ain't like that anymore and just wanting companies to pick up the slack is unacceptable to me.

To my knowledge, online chat can be disabled with parental controls.

Also, though gaming is regarded as a kids things, most survey's I have seen suggest the largest segments of the population into gaming are those people in their 20s-30s. With children and teens being the second largest, followed by middle age and elderly unsurprisingly in last.

@LemonSlice On a different thread I had people telling me a lot of people just stream music these days.