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The time I had excitedly been waiting for had finally come. On August 24th 2014 my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Harrison James Higginbotham. As anyone who has become a father can attest to, it is the most exciting and frightening time in one’s life. What if I screw them up? What if I lead them down a wrong path? What if they become a Sony Fan?! This upcoming series of articles will chronicle my journey as I figure out how to juggle being a father and a gamer. Please forgive me while I work out the final format of these pieces. I promise articles after this one will focus more on gaming.

My father is an ex-Marine of over 22 years. He is rough and tough around the edges but soft and loving on the inside. He really cares about his children and grandchildren. He is one of those guys which may not say a lot, or show emotion, but when he does it’s deep. After my son was born he gave me only three pieces of advice. Two were common sense while the third was something I didn’t expect. “Teach your son to do other things, like go outside, try a hobby, and get them away from technology. In this day and age you don’t have to teach technology. It will come to them.” This simple statement really quieted my mind as I focused on his words. Seeing what I do for a living, I am very excited to share video games, movies, and other technological advances with my son. But I always knew that a balance between video games and other activities was something I always wanted to reach. After these words from my dad, I realized the technology side was something I didn’t have to worry about. I’m sure we all will be amazed by the type of technology we have ten years from now. Technology will be in and around everything we do and things we can’t even imagine. My generation grew up as technology grew. My son is born in a time where technology has matured and started to saturated into our daily lives.

My dad’s words taught me that I don’t have to worry about my son integrating himself into technology; it’s going to happen by itself.  I always hope I will be the cool old father but pretty soon I’m going to fall behind in all that technology stuff and my son will probably quickly surpass me in coolness (probably by age 5). My place now is to show him the rest of the world. My father did a great job taking us boys camping, mountain biking, playing sports, and more. He also made time to take us to the Arcade or sit down and play some of our video games TOGETHER; I emphasize “together” for it being the most important part.

This is just the first in what I hope will be a series of articles about my journey to become a video game dad. At this moment, I’m not sure how long this series will last or its frequency. I guess that really depends on your feedback, and how often my new son will let me write. Would you like something like this? What topics are you interested in me talking about? Would you rather me stop and go on to other things? I would really appreciate your feedback.

Next Topic: Being a father has helped me fall back in love with the 3DS.