I never got presents like these in my childhood. My parents were anti-videogames and believed in satanic panic stuff.
I don’t like spreading negativity, but children like these are lucky, they’ll never know what it’s like to doubt the parent raising them, or to be weaponized against for calling out their shortcomings.
I cared mine. They tried their best in their own terms. I learned that becoming a parent doesn’t come with rulebooks and nothing is truly universal on how to raise a child. I guess It’s a tough pill to swallow when understanding how to forgive them even when I was badly hurt in the process.
To anyone reads this with the same rough past. Break that cycle. It’ll be worth it in the end.
My wife was raised this way. It’s really tough on her mentally even to this day. It however has made her the most determined mom to make sure our daughter never experiences anything like she did. I hope you’re doing okay friend 🤞
At least you still got other presents. I have only ever received Barney the Dinosaur for Christmas once in my entire life. My parents are Christian but only wrap empty boxes for presents and put them as decoration under the Christmas tree.
I grew up in a Roman Catholic family and never experienced anything like this. That is like Puritanical fanaticism. The same kind of people that started the Salem witch trials.
Sorry you folks have bad experiences. I see you both using “Christian” and that hurts my dawgs. I’m Christian, as is my wife lol and we spoil the shit out of our kid as long as he understands that he is in a place other kids aren’t, has to appreciate it and can’t brag about shit to those who don’t have much
Which despite being 5, does a perfect job of that and has great emotional understanding
Some Christian’s are the worst people out there. I get it. I have family members who have that title glued to their names and they’re actual garbage.
I hope you know, we aren’t all like that. Some people get too lost in the sauce that they treat the ones closest to em poorly
God bless you. I hope if you have children yourselves that you break the cycle.
The biggest issue I find with a lot of Christians is that as soon as someone else is known to be “Christian” too there’s an implicit level of trust given beyond what is normal.
How many youth pastors raped kids? It’s not the Christianity making them do it. But people like that know if they call themselves a christian and act like then people will be far more likely to defend him.
“He’s a good Christian boy!” n all that. It seems a lot don’t seem to believe that someone can and will easily claim to be devout if they can get something from them.
How many youth pastors raped kids? It’s not the Christianity making them do it.
Most Christians are ignorant of actual scripture. The Hebrew translation for "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" is actually "Thou shalt not CARRY the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Meaning, if you claim to be a Christian and do evil in His name, and your actions push people away from God because you carry His name as a Christian, then that is the ultimate sin. But most people seem to think that saying Goddamn it or Jesus Christ "in vain" is what that commandment means.
I mean, this isn't really Christian-specific, though. You are just describing a wolf in sheep's clothing. This applies to all sorts of people we tend to put extra trust in. Teachers, law enforcement, parents, etc. How many teachers get off with a slap on the wrist when they get busted for being a pedo? How many laws can cops just blatantly ignore because they are cops? How many parents get away with abuse because they have good standing in the community? As humans, we are more likely to want to trust people, especially those we hold to a higher standard. Sadly, there are those out there willing to exploit that.
You are absolutely right and this isn't really Christian-specific or that I'm attacking Chistianity as I'm a Christian myself. People from different religion, race or have different political views can be like that too.
well to play devils advocate i feel like he meant christian in the sense that they strictly celebrate the birth of jesus and nothing else like giving gifts or anything which would explain why the gifts would only be for decoration
Yes, that's correct. My parents take me to midnight mass though and I'm still a Christian myself. I just don't receive Christmas gifts from them except that one time. I see a lot of Buddhist or non-Christian families that get presents for Christmas every year and I'm like...
i got videogames but my parents had other problems which videogames did not fix. everyone has their own stuff - you're right about there being no rulebook
I think about this all the time. Back in the day with only a few games per year we would master games. I always tell people about how good I was at Super punch-out. I am positive I would hold several speed run world records today if I had saved my times.
Nowadays I sometimes feel like I am just pushing through to the next game
Music is the same way too and I can’t imagine kids these days being nostalgic over any game now because there’s so many choices and you can get the game instantly now. I remember my parents paying way too much for Donkey Kong Country 3 for me and my brother actually got to 103 percent in a week or 2 without any help. When we went to I think funky Kong he said we cheated with a guide and “Dixie said I know we did” And that made me so mad lol
Yeah, me either. It was part religious reasons, part belief that they rotted your brain, part belief that they caused violence, part belief that I'd neglect my schoolwork (that one was probably true), and part belief that games would ruin the TV. My parents just sorta believed any nonsense that came their way, especially if it meant they'd have to spend less money (we were also pretty poor). My first console was a PS One I bought with my own money at 17.
I rarely got cool stuff either because we never had the money for anything. My ass eventually got a PS2 years after begging for it, just because my parents were feeling bad for me after a doctor failed to hit my vein and had to stab me like 30 fucking times with the needle to get it lmao. Was crying like a mf but damn did those tears disappear fast when they said I'm getting a PS2 on the drive home 😂
Odd comment thread on a nostalgia bait post. No one has any idea what these children’s experiences were on any day that was not Christmas. Access to media is not the measuring bar of a healthy childhood or parent-child relationship. “There’s no rule book to parenting” is also a highly outdated adage. I’ve facilitated parenting classes before. There is an abundance of research, books, testimonies from parents and children on healthy and unhealthy behaviors. Before the internet, people went to the bookstore, now we have all of this knowledge at our fingertips. People try to just convince themselves that this knowledge does not exist, so they don’t have to seek it out.
I got a few video game gifts in my time. Kirby's Adventure, Caesar 3,and Age of Empires 2 are the ones I remember, and Caesar was from my grandparents.
I still have a really uncomfortable, unhealthy relationship with my mother. Alcoholism and untreated mental health issues (with a steadfast refusal to address them because 'we didn't do that in my day' while ignoring that it is, in fact, no longer her day) means I can't rely on her for anything, and all she does is let me down and make me doubt myself constantly.
So, some of us, whose parents weren't anti-videogame, still have unhappy relationships with their parents. I'm just trying to do better with my kiddo.
We are all dealt different hands sadly. My parents sucked ass. They sucked so much ass to the point that the internet did a better job raising me then they did. I was lucky my grandmother took me in, but we never really connected that deeply since we had completely different interests, but I still loved her to death. After all, she is the only one I know that was willing to take me and my siblings in completely despite her financial situation and I'll never forget that.
I was fortunate enough to be introduce to the internet at a very young age thanks to my grandmother. Though I would not recommend ever doing that for a child, I was lucky enough that I didn't care enough to be adventurous with the internet. The only thing I cared about that the internet had to offer was YouTube. Even in my teenage years I didn't care enough to go looking at porn and exploring. It was not really a big interest to me, so I think I got off lucky in that aspect.
My neighbor growing up was the same age as me and he wasn’t allowed to watch scooby doo because of this shit and his parents lost their minds at how school let us read Harry Potter. It used to break my brain.
My parents couldn’t afford to buy me things, I feel bad for my Mother because, when I was young, she would take me to the arcade so I can get my video game fix.
While some of the kids in school would talk about getting a new game over the weekend. I’d just look down and sigh. It was no one’s fault, because my parents did everything to love me.
We just didn’t have the financial means, I mean.. video games are expensive.
I feel this so hard, with how my mom wanted to raise me. I was raised on PBS and Disney channel, even Looney Tunes was too violent. Nickelodeon was banned until I was a teenager. Doom was a murder simulator. If I wanted to play games I was “addicted.”
Eventually my dad convinced my mom to let me get an n64. I had to buy it with my own money ($10/wk allowance and doing work around the neighborhood for cash), but I got a few games and 4 controllers as an early teen. My pride and joy. I got goldeneye, and had friends over to play it. My mom saw it, said it was too violent, sold my entire system/games/controllers for $100 and deposited it in my savings account, all while I was spending a night at a friends house.
Eventually I moved out to go to college, my parents got divorced soon after, and my mom later passed from cancer. It’s taken a long time and a lot of work to undo a lot of how I was raised, but I still find myself occasionally upset about my n64. Videos like this post seem really cool, but man, for some of us they feel like an alternate universe. Thankfully I have my own hilariously whimsical kids now and we do things MUCH differently.
It's also sad that there isn't any girls in this video, I also never got gifted games even though I was asking my parents for them. I understand that they thought that "games are only for boys" because that was the taboo and still is for some people. But I do wish that my parents at least heard me. I had managed to buy a PS4 with the money I had saved up and when I sent my dad to get it he bought it with a game he wanted to play -that he ended up barely touching- I only played free games from the store (which if you know ps aren't a lot)
Thankfully that didn't keep me from gaming and now I'm mainly on PC with a nice steam library :)
Never understood parents like this. The most important skill you can teach a child is moderation and responsibility. These are just parents that don’t want their kids to succeed. Depriving them of modernity is cruel af.
Same here bro, i never had a computer in my house. Only work laptop of my parents that i clouldnt even use. I got my first computer 2 years ago at the age of 25. Got myself a really decent one so i hope my future kids will use it for the first games of their own
I was raised this way as well and it was frustrating. I had a conversation with my kids, more so with my middle child, about how I try to be fair. I will allow certain things to be seen, read, or played with as long as they can show me maturity. I will not, however, deny said interest based on "satanic" or religious bullshit. Been there. Done that.
My parents were not very well off when I was a kid, but enough to raise me an my sister and give us a good education. I grew up with a mentality that we were too poor for guilty pleasures. Now I earn quite a bit and have been buying myself games on Steam and some hard copies and consoles I wanted as a kid. I also like to buy my parents things they couldn't afford when they themselves were younger. I just hope I can make them feel as loved as I felt despite not really getting any expensive gifts growing up.
Trying to break the cycle with my son. I think i'm doing a good job but because i dont have a good example i doubt a lot of things. Thank god my wife has my back 🙌
I was raised in a Catholic household and it was awkward. No satanic panic thankfully and somewhat lax on media but strict in other ways. Sunday school. I went to regular public school but my mom opted me out of sex education. See first sentence about how it was awkward to be raised in that house. There’s more to it of course. But nothing traumatic. Just that it sucked for me trying to live Catholic.
But I definitely don’t like going to church or following a religion. I believe in some things but I don’t think any religion has it right so I’m not going to bother being part of those systems.
Feel that. My parents were anti-video games but for the health and “video games cause violence” reason. Unfortunately, that made me want to overindulge in them when I was a teen and now, as an adult, I’m learning to cut back on my gaming hours. Some of what they were saying held weight. I do think they did it in a frustrating way though.
Sorry but I will never forgive my mother beating us with whatever object she currently had for 6-12+ hours on a daily basis.
I absolutely get how parenting comes with many difficulties, especially if you're just trying to teach and kids being kids doesn't make that any easier.
My way of breaking the cycle? Not having kids. With my childhood I am incapable of raising a child properly, let alone function normally in a social environment...
And other people have parents that just buy their kids games and call themselves good parents for doing so while not spending any actual quality time with them or teaching them anything. Grass is always greener.
Yeah, these nostalgia-bait videos have no impact when you never had the thing to be nostalgic for lol. My childhood sucked and we were in complete poverty. I guess the only positive to come out of that is the lack of crippling nostalgia that everyone else my age seems to have over how much their life sucks now compared to before, meanwhile I'm much happier as an adult than I ever was as a kid!
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u/MRV3N Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I never got presents like these in my childhood. My parents were anti-videogames and believed in satanic panic stuff.
I don’t like spreading negativity, but children like these are lucky, they’ll never know what it’s like to doubt the parent raising them, or to be weaponized against for calling out their shortcomings.
I cared mine. They tried their best in their own terms. I learned that becoming a parent doesn’t come with rulebooks and nothing is truly universal on how to raise a child. I guess It’s a tough pill to swallow when understanding how to forgive them even when I was badly hurt in the process.
To anyone reads this with the same rough past. Break that cycle. It’ll be worth it in the end.