I secretly stayed up until 1 AM reorganizing my kid's cozy farming video game.
By @ellieactually · Gaming
He woke up super confused seeing optimized layouts and stone paths instead of his messy layout. My husband says I ruined his sense of discovery, but his crops were completely unwatered.
The full story
I bought my 8-year-old son a refurbished handheld console for his birthday, mostly so he'd stop stealing my phone in the carpool line. His current obsession is this cute indie farming sim. The problem is that every time he goes to bed, I sneak the console out of his backpack to 'organize his inventory' and clear his overgrown fields. Last night he was sound asleep, and I stayed up until 1:00 AM completely paving his farm, reorganizing his artisan sheds, and placing high-efficiency sprinklers. When he woke up this morning, he walked downstairs staring at the screen looking totally bewildered instead of excited. they asked me if the game had a secret update because his entire layout looked completely corporate. I panicked and told him his virtual farm helpers must have worked overtime. My husband caught me laughing by the coffee machine and told me I basically stole our kid's sense of discovery just to satisfy my own micro-management itch. Now I feel mildly ridiculous, but honestly his original plot was pure chaos with fences blocking his own barn door.
How people voted
- Bad Move — 28% (80 votes)
- Needs Context — 43% (121 votes)
- Reasonable — 29% (82 votes)
Readers say “Needs Context” (43%) — 283 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@elliesorta — nah start taxing him rent for the paved roads lmao
@maraagain — Oh honey, you just wanted his little farm to look pretty, but you definitely have to buy your own game now!
@paigewelp — If my mom did this to me at eight years old I would've quietly sold all her favorite items in retaliation.
@maxx — You are projecting your own need for control onto an eight-year-old's digital sandbox, you're definitely cooked.
@ivyyy — Why didn't you just create your own separate save file on the console?
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