Sometimes when I talk to my eleven year old son I feel like an ESOL student. I try to follow his conversation, leaning toward him as I drive to help me concentrate. Every now and then coherent phrases emerge that encourage me to follow along and hope I understand. But then the conversation descends into gibberish that I can only marginally comprehend. I try to fake it like I did as a new taxpayer when my dad tried explaining the tax form to me. It usually works, but every now and then I sense his frustration. Maybe if I was a better mom I would invest some time to learn this video game language, but I haven’t.

“I’m so glad I found the Emerald Version. I can’t wait to get home and play it,” he shares his relief and excitement with me. He has recently found his Gameboy DS when we moved the old couch out of the house. He had wanted me to replace the lost system with a Gameboy SP. I always feel resentful to the point of anger that the gaming industry puts out a new model every year and markets it so that kids feel like they must have the newer version, even if none of their game cartridges will work on the new system. So naturally, the sucker parents will then have to buy all new games too.

When he was campaigning for the DS system he asked if I knew what DS stood for. Dumb shit? I thought. “Dual Screen” he explained. When the SPs hit the market he asked me the same question. “Stupid Parents?” I ventured, only to be met with a big eye roll from my skinned-kneed boy.

“When I see Stephen I can use my cord to link our systems and trade my Oddish to him and he can trade it back because that’s the only way it can evolve.” I somewhat understood this explanation and gave a generic, “Sounds like a good plan” response.

“Mom, do you know how to breed pokemons?” Kyle asked, eager to bring me up to speed.
“Give them bourbon?” I guessed. He must’ve reacted the same way to my bourbon comment as I had to his earlier explanations.
“No,” he continued nonplussed by my attempt at humor. He knows that breeding makes more Pokemons, but he hasn’t considered their sexuality specifically. That’s probably a good thing.
“I can use a Leafstone to evolve Gloom into Vileplume. Then if I can breed the Vileplume with Skeptile, I’ll get a Treeko.
“Why do you want a Treeko?” I asked thinking how similar Pokemon wrangling sounded to my convoluted love life.
“Then I’d have two of the three beginning Pokemons and that would be cool,” he said, explaining the obvious.

Despite the communication gaps, I love my kids. I have so much to learn from them!