Observations: The Game of Life

My daughter received the game of Life for her 7th birthday a couple weeks ago. This was a favorite of mine as a child, so I was excited to not only have her play it, but for me to play it with her.

What I guess I didn't remember was that the person who wins is the one who has the most money. Perhaps as a child I just didn't get into that part, but my adult mind was surprised by this. I am guessing it would be far too difficult to create a game that really looked at all aspects of life at the end of the game to account for happiness, fulfillment, etc.

At any rate, I have enjoyed playing this the past week with my children and have gained some insight into how they view things. At first when we played and it was time to choose your career we decided you could pick between two cards rather than just simply pulling one out of a pile. My 8 year old son picked TEACHER and DOCTOR. If you haven't played the game in a while the career cards say what the pay is and what you might have to pay in taxes (if you land on the tax spot). At any rate, my son looked at the two cards and was astounded by the difference in salaries for a teacher and a doctor. He contemplated for quite a while about this and even said, "I really think a teacher would be the better job between the two, but look at how much money I could make if I become a doctor?!" Oh, these difficult decisions have begun already!

To be honest, I was pretty glad to hear that he felt like a teacher was a better job than a doctor. Not that I think that isn't a good job, but rather I take it that he sees me enjoying my job as a teacher and that he sees his teachers enjoying their jobs.

Despite these thoughts of feeling like a teacher would be a better job he still chose to be a doctor. He was happy to make some good money and I believe he did win the game in the end. It will be interesting to see what he would choose next time.

The next time I played was just against my daughter. At this point we had actually read the directions and saw that we really weren't supposed to have a choice between careers beyond choosing from the post college careers or the without college careers. My daughter drew the TEACHER card. She was excited about this. I drew the ACCOUNTANT card. I hope I don't offend anyone here, but I was not thrilled with this choice at all. I am not a numbers gal and would rather do almost anything than deal with finances.

Throughout the game my daughter kept acquiring more and more children through births and adoption. I, on the other hand, had none. I was visibly kind of sad about this. I think it's important for me to acknowledge that yes, I do get a little too into these games I play with my kids. My daughter was losing money left and right since she had a carload of children. I on the other hand kept gaining more and more money. Apparently accountants can do pretty well financially!

At the end of the game I was a multimillionaire and my daughter had a little money left, but according to the game rules, I won. My daughter looked at me and noticed I was not ecstatic. To be honest, I typically am when I win a game, but not this time. She looked at my empty car and looked at her very full car and said, "I'm sorry to say this mom, but I think I had the better life." I was already thinking this, but for her to say it made me feel like we're somewhat on the right track with her.

It was pretty neat for her to look at what she had gained "over the years" in her game of Life and really, what I had gained was simply only money. My daughter was especially thrilled that she had had a chance to adopt a pet from the Humane Society during her "lifetime". In her 7 year old mind this tops of the list of things to do in life. I hope this doesn't change in her...at least not too much and not anytime soon.

I am excited to keep playing this game with my kids to hear their insight about "life" and see how their decisions alter throughout the years as they play the board game. The reality is that all of us would feel differently about what we would consider to be a "good life". No life is perfect, of course and money can certainly make things easier in life, but it isn't a replacement for everything else we could gain along the way.