I grew up an avid gamer. But now, among my 50-hour work week, helping my kids with their math homework, grocery shopping, and house chores, I’m no longer able to find enough free time to really dive into a game. I mostly play casual games that I can drop in and out of but forget about the 40hr+ games requiring commitment. Despite not having the free time to game like I used to, I do enjoy watching my kids play while I’m doing other things around the house and then listen to them telling me about their accomplishments afterwards. I would like to hear from community members with similar circumstance about how you manage your time.
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- Sneak the time when you can
- Play games with them
- Wait until they are 12 (-ish) and they decide you are uncool
Otherwise, you’re doing what I ended up doing. There was a long span that, I just… never played games because I was too busy. I regret that a bit because it’s a thing that makes me happy and even if I’m “Dad”, I’m still a person that deserves some time for “me”.
This more or less. My wife games too. We went through periods where we probably gamed too much and had to correct that behavior (house was becoming a mess and kids ignored school too much)
For us it put a decent amount of pressure on our marriage for a while until we admitted that gaming needed to take a backseat to life in general. Its hard. I grew up with gaming and both my wife and I were 8+ hours a day of MMO before kids. But life demanded we become adults for a while and be responsible.
My kids are finally on the older side where their demands on my time is lower. I still don’t game much before dinner and most house chores are done. I try to game with them a bit after dinner and then I get about 1.5 to 2 hours to play a few League of Legends games (yes, I know i hate myself) if I don’t want to ruin my sleep.
It’s one of those “season of your life” kind of things. There’s just a certain period of time where the family takes priority because of what the kids need. Just like everything else related to kids, at some point it will change and your time management will as well. They will become more independent, and you’ll have more time, but you may even find that your interest in gaming has changed.
Games will always be there, but your kids are only kids for a very short amount of time. Treasure it while you can!
Recently my wife and I agreed on me having one set night a week for gaming and it’s been great. I get my gaming time in but it’s a reasonable amount considering all the other responsibilities of work and parenting
One night of personal time for each parent is the real LPT here.
We have this as well. Wednesday night is CS GO with the boys for me. Sometimes I skip it, but it’s nice to have it planned out, when everything else feels like chaos.
I found a job that doesn’t ask me for 50 hours a week and they go to bed at a reasonable hour. But don’t ask me what I’m not spending enough time doing, like working out. Or how much we spend on takeout (way, WAY too much). And on top of that I have pretty great family support.
Basically, it’s hard even under ideal conditions with some less than great compromises.
The kids will really remember the times they sat down and played games with you. So you end up trying to make the best out of roblox and minecraft to find a nice balance of everyone being happy.
Ah ah ah. 😭 I just can’t play as often or as long as i’d want…
I have twins that are just shy of 2. First, I play way more mobile gaming. The ability to play only a few minutes at a time makes a huge difference, so multiplayer games are largely out.
When not mobile gaming, Xbox’s instant resume is a godsend. I’ve made it through the entire Yakuza series playing in small chunks and instantly resuming when I can.
Joining the parent club in about 3 months, but in preparation, I’ve purchased a “Couchmaster lapboard” and I cannot recommend it enough. Having shoulder support basically makes it feel like you’re sitting at your desk but comfortably on the couch. The only issue is the couch itself; if it has a lot of bounce you’re gonna have a wobbly desk any time someone sits / stands up from the couch.
Btw I’ve since found you can pretty much just buy some upholstery foam, cut it, put a plank over it and have your very own “Couchmaster” for roughly $20 instead of $200…
Congratulations! I always appreciate the creativity of new parents trying to find ways to keep life the way it was. Not to discourage you from trying, but I honestly hope you can succeed where most of us have failed.
I’m not too worried. I’m already gaming less and less just out of personal lack of interest. Modern games just don’t do it for me, and I’ve accepted I have become part of an older generation. Once in a while it’s fun to play a new (or old) game that piques my interest, and when I have some time to kill I might play a round of Overwatch.
But yeah totally recognize that for those who still game many hours a day there’s not going to be a perfect solution. Your gaming hobby WILL suffer. But that’s probably a good thing; tiny human is the bigger priority (until they’re old enough for player two…).
5 year old and an 18 month old. I used to work nights so I’d basically have three hours a night from when they went down, to when I had to leave for work. Unfortunately working nights wasn’t tenable anymore, and as such I now work days…and get significantly less time to game.
If I’m lucky, both kids are in bed at 7:15. And if there’s no bedtime theatrics…I can usually carve out 2 hours to play, three if I’m feeling risky (have to be awake at 4:30).
My kid is a toddler, I can’t play games around him, even on my Switch or Steam Deck because he’s too distracting and wants too much attention. My wife and I usually play games for about an hour after he goes to sleep and we finish all the chores (laundry, cooking, dishes, food prep, daycare prep).
Between about 9:00pm and 10:00pm, on weekends if either of us have the time we’ll try to get chores done during the day while he’s awake which would give us maybe one more hour.
That’s it though, probably a third of the time we spend that single hour with some other form of relaxation (TV, book, social media, maybe ½ a movie). Another third of the time we just have other obligations or extra chores - maybe we need to do taxes or buy airplane tickets or book hotels for travel. Then, probably one or two nights a week on average we’re just too tired to do anything past 9pm and go to bed early.
So… all said, maybe 3 hours of gaming a week on average. Every so often my wife or I will take the kiddo out by ourselves and the other will have an extra hour or two for whatever but that’s not every week.
I know that feeling… I play a little bit at night when only us adults are up. It helps that my wife also games at times.
Other than that… I work from home so I might sneak in some gaming during lunch breaks and so on.
Overall? Not a whole lot.
If I get up to 2 hours a day I’m pretty happy. :P
My dad’s a working gamer parent and he definitely struggles with it. He has a lot of time on weekends, but on weekdays he’ll usually only game for about an hour or however long 2 or 3 levels in the game he’s playing is. There’s times where he’s spent well over a month completing a game that me (a college student with way too much free time) completed in a week.
I canceled my WoW subscription the day my son was born. Now both kids are teenager I’m getting back into some slightly more serious gaming, but I have to admit that my priorities have changed a bit and I still do much less gaming than I did before kids.
