Imaginary things have such real meaning to kids.

Playing Minecraft, Calfgrit8 gave Calfgrit12 a diamond sword. A diamond sword is made by crafting three diamonds with one stick of wood. Now, diamonds are not easy to find in Minecraft, but I can get a couple or so just about every time I mine deep — which is pretty much every time I play for an hour. We each have several diamonds saved up. I could make probably six diamond swords right now, but I don’t really need anything better than iron.

Anyway, so CG8 gave his big brother an imaginary item in an online game. Big brother hung the item on a wall in his imaginary house in the online game. A little while later, CG8 had giver’s remorse, and wanted the item back. Well, actually, he wanted stuff in exchange for the diamond sword. CG12 argued that it was a gift, not an exchange. But what CG8 wanted for the sword was stuff so easy to collect, bones and seeds — stuff you can accumulate accidentally in 30 minutes of playing. Even so, CG12 argued that he shouldn’t have to give anything in exchange for a “gift.”

So CG8 went to his brother’s imaginary house in the game, and took the sword off the wall and back to his own house. And all hell broke loose in our real home.

“You stole my diamond sword!” CG12 shouted.

“No, you stole it from me!” CG8 shouted.

“You gave it to me!”

“I wanted to trade!”

Now it should be noted that Calfgrit8 plays on the computer upstairs, and Calfgrit12 plays on the computer downstairs. So the shouted argument was loud enough for them to harangue each other 30 feet apart, around walls, and up/down a stairway. I let it go on for a couple of minutes, thinking, (read: hoping, praying), they would solve it without my needing to get involved. But it kept going. Then CG12 came upstairs, and CG8 met him at the top of the stairs, where they continued shouting and threatened physical violence on each other. I had to step in at that point.

I had to shut down the Minecraft play time to take each boy separately into another room to ask exactly what had happened and was going on. They both told me the situation, but of course with their own personal twisted perspective. At the time I stepped in, CG8 had his diamond sword. I ruled that he keep it and CG12 should just let the incident go. CG12 didn’t need the sword — he had just hung it on the wall of his imaginary house for decoration. If he actually wanted the sword, he could trade what CG8 wanted for it. But no, he decided it was the principal of the matter, and he refused to trade even the easy trash his brother was asking for.

You know, parenting is hard enough when arguments and fights break out over real world toys. But it gets absurdly difficult when the struggles are over completely imaginary things that can so easily be duplicated and replaced by just continuing to play the game they’re playing for fun.

Bullgrit

Last Friday, (Jan 4), was my oldest son’s 12th birthday. For his birthday party he wanted me to take his friends out to see The Hobbit in the theater. So Wifegrit and I planned it out:

The best show time for this was 4:00. The boys would come over to our house right after school, I would leave work at 3:00, and we’d get out the door a little after 3:30.

When I got home a little before 3:30, all eight 6th graders were in my house eating snacks — cheesy bread, nachos, pretzels, carrots. We wanted them full before the movie so I didn’t have to spend $100 on popcorn. The boys were loud and excited, but only two were really sort of over the top. When time came, Wifegrit and I herded the boys out to our vehicles. She’d take 5, (including Calfgrit12), in her van, I’d take 3 in my truck. She’d drop them off and I’d take them in for the movie, then she’d come back to help bring them home.

With the boys all loaded in the vehicles, we headed off to the theater. The three boys in my truck were getting a bit rowdy, so to distract them with a “game,” I plugged in my iPhone to the stereo system. At the first red light, I opened my music player and pulled up a song.

“Let’s see if you can identify this music,” I said.

Within the first few notes, one of the boys shouted, “The James Bond theme!” And he was right. That was probably a bit easy, especially considering there’s a James Bond movie in theaters right now.

At each red light, I chose a different song. After a few moments, another boy shouted, “‘Moby Dick’ by Led Zeppelin!” Holy crap, right again!

I pulled up another song. After a few moments, the boys were banging their feet and clapping their hands to “We Will Rock You” by Queen. They knew that song too. “Do you have ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’?” they asked.

“Of course I do,” I said. But looking through my library of songs, I discovered, much to my surprise, that I don’t have that. Wow, what a glaring hole.

I switched to another song, but they didn’t know “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel. One of the boys requested, “Can you play more Led Zeppelin? That’s mine and my dad’s favorite group.”

I put on another Zeppelin song. We talked about how surprised I was that they knew so many classic songs. They mentioned several classic artists they knew, and as we were about to pull into the theater parking lot, I put on “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey. Not only did the boys recognize the song immediately, they joined me in singing along.

Just a small town girl

living in a lonely world

She took the midnight train goin’ anywhere.

These are 6th graders, 11 and 12 years old. And they know these songs from their parent’s youth.

Finally we pulled into a parking spot and all got out to join the boys unloading from Wifegrit’s van. I already had tickets, purchased the day before, and we headed in for the movie.

Bullgrit

Random statements I’ve heard from my boys recently:

Calfgrit8 to Calfgrit11: “I don’t want to tell you what me and Daddy did while you were gone because it would make you jealous, but it was awesome! We had so much fun!

Calfgrit11 to Calfgrit8: “CG8! Dad just turned on the TV!”

Calfgrit8 to Calfgrit11: “I’m not supposed to tell you what I got you for Christmas, but it’s what you told me you wanted the other day when we were in Target.”

Calfgrit11 to Calfgrit8: “No, I wouldn’t want you to starve to death, even though you’re sometimes very annoying.”

Bullgrit