Me, My Son, and Oblivion

So my son is playing Oblivion, which is a 4-year-old RPG for XBox 360, PC, and PS3. I'm playing it too, after a hiatus of about a year and a half, because we ("we" meaning "I") got a new XBox 360 Elite for Christmas, and he asked me, "Dad, if you get another 360, can I make a character on Oblivion?" And I said "sure", not really expecting that I'd get one any time soon, but I did, so he plays.

So he's going through this one part of the main quest, which involves going into this cave full of fanatical cult members, and pretty much you have to kill them all. Well, I came home tonight at 7:50pm, just to change clothes so I could go meet Haberman in Mankato to pick up his paperwork. And he's in the middle of this cavern, no healing potions, chased by 10 bad guys. And he's super frustrated. And I try to help him out of this impossible situation, and I get his character killed, and he goes to bed still frustrated. I jumped in once already to bail him out, and those results were short-lived.

So work with me, here, the allegory is coming. So I'm like, "Son, you should always be carrying about twice the number of healing potions you think you'll need," and he's like, "Dad, it's not fair. You got to this point and this other point in the quest when you were level 1, and I'm level 11." And I said, "Son, you wouldn't believe the number of hours I've *already* put in on this game, like well over 100." And I got to thinking about the game as an allegory for life, and my current experiment with doing healthy things.

I've tried to tell my son the things to do in the game to be successful, like picking all kinds of plants to make potions, repairing armor after each battle, and so forth. And he keeps ignoring what I tell him, and going on his own way, lah-dee-dah. Because even though he knows I'm better at the game than him, his ego still gets in the way, and he wants to screw around and do things his own way. And I'm thinking, "Wow, this must be how my own father felt when I wanted to buy a car, or make a career choice, or date someone." He's put in all these hours, knows the game better than I do, but still I have to be a dick and ignore his advice, and find out for myself.

Well, if I hadn't done so, I never would have learned anything. I remember Eirik trying to walk for the first time, falling down, crying, frustrated, but he kept at it and eventually pulled it off. I'm not sure that I could've passed him any information that would've been helpful at the time, like "lean forward". When it was important enough for him to walk, he figured it out. And likewise with Oblivion. And the rest of his life. Forget the ego that says "you suck", or "you can't handle this", lean forward, and walk.

But damn, it's hard to sit back, as a father, and let him get his bumps and bruises, either in real life or on video.