Gaming as a Parent

My husband and I used to game a lot before we came parents. Our favorite game to play together was Conan Exiles. It was just a lot of grinding, but we had fun. After we first had our son, that gaming time was practically nonexistent. Well, apart from when I got hooked on Stardew Valley, I would play it while my son napped.

Recently I started playing Genshin Impact. It’s a really fun game, I still can’t believe it’s free. There are gacha elements for you to spend money on it, but I’m cheap and am just free to play. I feel guilty about playing. I maybe spend like an hour to game, but during that time my son is always pestering me. I set up activities for him to do, but he would rather bother me. I spend quality time with him earlier in the day. After work I typically take him outside or to the pool to play where we have quality one on one time. I guess it just makes me feel guilty. Like I should be spending more time with him, but I literally spend all day with him (I work remotely), and spend 2-3 hours of quality time with him everyday. Is it that bad that I want to game for 1 hour? I only get like one hour to myself everyday. 1/24 what is that? Like 4% of my day spent on something I enjoy. I know logically it is okay to take some time for myself, but I feel so guilty about it.

My husband on the other hand….he’s something else. He can play for hours a day and not feel bad about it. I am the main care taker for our son, I want to be an involved parent, he doesn’t care about that until our son gets older. It’s kind of annoying, but kids can pick up on who is invested and who isn’t. If that’s the kind of relationship he wants with our son then I guess that’s what he wants. I on the other hand will continue to mentally torture myself into thinking I don’t do enough. I will however will save at least 30 min of my day to play Genshin Impact…maybe more on the weekend.