by Erin Kinter

Created on: May 11, 2008

I can start no more simply than by saying that I have been gaming for over 25 years and I am also a single mom. My daughter is 8 years old now and has never lived a day in her life without a game console in the house and a plethora of games to play. I find myself in a growing minority of women who love to game and also happen to have children.

It use to be the idea of a true female gamer was in itself laughable, although it is widely agreed that that attitude has changed completely with introductions of gaming clans such as the Frag Dolls, all female gaming events in Europe and Asia, etc. But the idea of a "mom" doing it and actually being good at it is still head tilting for most hardcore gamers. I still encounter a degree from disbelief from men (some fathers) that I am as old as I say I am and that I have to quit a room to go tend to dinner, but I find this simply amusing.

My daughter takes after my own gaming heart and owns three separate consoles herself and does chores to earn money to purchase her own new games from the store or off download. We spend long amounts of time together as I help her figure out puzzles and difficult levels in her favorite games (mostly my hand me downs), and she watches mom pwn newbs on-line. Not your traditional mother daughter activities by any means but we enjoy it. And we surely are not the only ones. This type of bonding has existed between fathers and sons for quite some time, but now its mommy's turn, at least for those of us who enjoy this form of entertainment.

There is essentially no difference between a gamer father and a gamer mother, but I still encounter on-line questions like "Is this your husbands console?" , and "Did your boyfriend get your stats so high for you?". I must do nothing but laugh as I don't take it as sexism but just ignorance. When I tell them I belong to a game clan and compete they usually fall silent, and when I pwn them they typically either leave the game or befriend me.

My daughter has come home from school to tell me she argued with friends about whether her mother even really played and didn't just do it with her on her consoles. It hurt her feelings that they didn't believe her and it confused her because she couldn't' understand why. When I was pregnant with her I played a personal best of about 28 hours straight of game play, so shes been seeing me do it literally from the womb.

Unfortunately I have heard of some mom gamers whose children disapprove and find it embarrassing. For the same

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