Milton Bradley's The Game of Life
I grew up with a board game, as the side announced, "Heartily endorsed by Art Linkletter."
I didn't know who Art Linkletter was when I first played Life, but I knew he was important because there, on the $100,000 bill, was his picture. Just like the one on the game box, only surrounded with dollar signs and a fake title, Esq., after his name.
But this isn't really about Mr. Linkletter, nor his endorsement of the game. I awoke this morning wondering if I, or if any of my generation, who had played this game as a child -- or even just owned a family copy in their games collection -- had been conditioned to accept that the elements that "win" this board game caused how we perceived what decisions we should make for ourselves, and encourage in others.
Particularly, I had this idea that the winning family (the one who gets to the last space, Millionaire Acres, with the most money) is just like the family the game is designed for. There are no single parents. There are no deaths. And despite the blue and pink people-post game pieces, no gays, no dating, no car-pooling. You started with a car. Then you chose a career or a good career. You picked up children along the way, like some mostly random hitchhikers, only you couldn't just leave them on the roadside.
If you didn't get to Millionaire Acres, you could surrender to the Poor Farm.
As I was looking at my life's successes and failures (currently the successes usually represent my past, and the failures mostly are in the present), I was trying to find what missing piece of education this game had to offer that I didn't get. I thought of two possibilities: one, that I understood the game, emulated it, and naively assumed that this would give me some advantage in my occupation, choices, and family; or two, that I never understood the game at all, and have always made poor choices because I have been measuring my life with the wrong socio-economic yardstick.
I finally concluded that the Game of Life is about spinning a wheel.
I didn't know who Art Linkletter was when I first played Life, but I knew he was important because there, on the $100,000 bill, was his picture. Just like the one on the game box, only surrounded with dollar signs and a fake title, Esq., after his name.
But this isn't really about Mr. Linkletter, nor his endorsement of the game. I awoke this morning wondering if I, or if any of my generation, who had played this game as a child -- or even just owned a family copy in their games collection -- had been conditioned to accept that the elements that "win" this board game caused how we perceived what decisions we should make for ourselves, and encourage in others.
Particularly, I had this idea that the winning family (the one who gets to the last space, Millionaire Acres, with the most money) is just like the family the game is designed for. There are no single parents. There are no deaths. And despite the blue and pink people-post game pieces, no gays, no dating, no car-pooling. You started with a car. Then you chose a career or a good career. You picked up children along the way, like some mostly random hitchhikers, only you couldn't just leave them on the roadside.
If you didn't get to Millionaire Acres, you could surrender to the Poor Farm.
As I was looking at my life's successes and failures (currently the successes usually represent my past, and the failures mostly are in the present), I was trying to find what missing piece of education this game had to offer that I didn't get. I thought of two possibilities: one, that I understood the game, emulated it, and naively assumed that this would give me some advantage in my occupation, choices, and family; or two, that I never understood the game at all, and have always made poor choices because I have been measuring my life with the wrong socio-economic yardstick.
I finally concluded that the Game of Life is about spinning a wheel.