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Comment by sdegutis | Hacker News Reader

It's purely about protecting them from obsession. Whenever they play legos, they don't pretend to live in a lego world for months on end afterward.

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I remember when my parents tried to temper a particularly deep obsession with a specific video game from my youth. My father was very quick to brand it as "not real life", "anti-social" and "worthless".

Needless to say, attempting to ban the game from my life was unsuccessful, even with scorched earth policies like physically cutting internet cables. Meanwhile, I firmly credit my time on this game as the kindling to my career as a developer. A point which (along with making more at 23 than he did at 45) I take great pleasure in reminding my father of whenever the opportunity arises.

Here's to hoping your kid grows up and finds an annoying and creative way to say "I was right, you were wrong, check out this pile of cash I got"

Being a parent is largely about making the decisions that you think are right to the best of your ability. Give your father a break.

maybe your father pushing you away from it actually pushed you into it even more, so you better thank him. or send him half that pile...

In many years time we'll probably see a Minecraft revival with former child players reinventing it(1): They might even get modding to work.

(1) http://www.midnightmu.com/games_home.php

I think that's probably going on right now, with the Sponge project.

We'll see how it works out, but I'm hopeful.

Ah. Perhaps if there were actual, studied, reported instances of adults who suffered in life because of a childhood obsession, this point would make more sense.

It seems that your entire decision to ban Minecraft stems from your impression that they're "too obsessed" with it and that they shouldn't be spending so much time on something that they are clearly passionate about (studies and research show that passion generates the best workers and innovators!)...

Let's agree to disagree.

Let's not. That's stupid too. Not as stupid as wilfully doing something to one's own children that has a chance to negatively affect their future without even bothering to question oneself, but still pretty stupid.

I am not one of those parents who bases all his decisions on double-blind studies performed at prestigious universities and such.

I raise my children based on my own judgments of what's best for them. And I use my own God-given intelligence and experience to form those judgments.

So no, I will not agree with you. If you do not agree to disagree, then that's your choice. But disagreement doesn't require both parties' content.

> I raise my children based on my own judgments of what's best for them. And I use my own God-given intelligence and experience to form those judgments.

So you refuse to acknowledge that you might be lacking in knowledge and experience in some critical aspects of your childrens' education. And/or you refuse to accept that the conclusions you reach with your limited knowledge, alone, one single human out of billions, might be erroneous and cause harm to your children. And/or you refuse to accept that there might be others out there with more knowledge and experience than you on certain topics. And/or you think God will make everything okay just because you have faith, and the fact that people get raped and killed every day despite their faith does not sway you.

I think that, right there, is the source of your problems.

I pity your children for having you for a parent. For having someone like you be in control of their lives.

I dunno, when I was a kid, my brother and I would play Legos for 6+ hours a day, for days on end sometimes. And we developed such intricate settings and plots that it almost felt like we lived in a Lego world for months. I don't think Minecraft is fundamentally different in that respect.

What if "obsession" isn't the right word? What if you used the word "passion" instead?

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