AIBU to not want to get my son any kind of games consul when hes older?

[1Micem0use]

I've seen how damaging they are, and really dont want him to end up a gamer. I've got two male relatives in their late 30s who spend an unhealthy amount of time on it. It's not an exaggeration to say they are obsessed, and their life revolves around it.
I had a boyfriend back at university who was a gamer too. Whilst thankfully he did have a few other hobbies, he also gamed for hours on end. He would shout abuse down his headset to other players on his team when he felt they weren't doing well. To the point where he was warned about being taken off the team by its leader.
I want my little boy to grow up to be happy, healthy, and nice to others.
My gamer relatives tell me it would basically be child abuse not to buy him a console, and that children have them from primary school now.

[HoppingPavlova]

Theres also my personal opinion that it's sad as fuck for grown adults to be so obsessed with playing games that they would ignore a beautiful sunny day, shut all the curtains, and fester for hours.

I love the way you think you can control how your kids will ultimately turn out. I have one, where as a child, they had the ‘balanced’ upbringing. They had music lessons, swam, martial arts, play dates, football, lots of ‘quality’ family time and cultural activities/festivals etc, and games consoles. They now have uni and football as a sole obsession. Apart from uni work, they are playing football, watching football live or on the TV if nothing live they can get to, screaming at the players and umpires (profanity abounds) or reading all the current news about football players on their phone. No one else in the household has this as an interest. If someone’s going to develop an obsession they will.

[Sonichu]

"That made me smile, I'd never heard of a dedicated Pong console. Google tells me it was the first in 1975"

They married in 1975 so that sounds about right. And the first home games console (Magnavox Odyssey) came out in the dark ages of 1972. So hardly a new phenomenon at all.

[TerrorWig]

@MarshaBradyo you can tell me to fuck off in real words if you like, I don’t care. I object to being called an idiot though.

I mean I agree with you, consoles are not the be-all and end-all, my point is that you seem to think that consoles are what make people into screaming lazy gamers, like that doesn’t happen if you game on a pc.

If your son has an Epic account btw he could have downloaded GTAV for free this week - I mention this only because MN always gets into a froth about it.

[MarshaBradyo]

Terror I love a good fuck off on here as anyone but got an email once from mn so have to stick to a quota just in case. Sad times.

But no I don’t think that. If the op gets to eg year 5 and thinks she has to get a console because her son will be left out she could save her money and wait until she needs to get a PC in secondary (most likely) and do it that way. The benefits are, for me, not another item for siblings to argue over (teens PC is his and no one cares), ten year old doesn’t want to game on one and toddler has no idea. And extra clutter but that is probably just me.

People can do what they want, just that there’s another way if you don’t want one. Teen does games with friends and enjoys it so what you mention is not the part I was focussing on. Ie I don’t think one makes you immune and other screaming gamer.

[Tsubasa1]

YANBU follow your instinct and your gut, and brush off the criticism.