The Game of Life: Mom's Way

My boys love playing the board game: "Life."

I hate some of the assumptions built into the game. My big peeves are:

1. You have to get married.

2. You can only choose between being a blue or pink person.

3. You have to have kids.

4. You have to buy a house.

5. The accumulation of monetary wealth determines the winner.

6. There is only one road to get to the end of the game. The symbolism behind that bothers me.

So - my boys know that Mom plays it with some slightly expanded options:

1. You don't have to get married.

2. You can still have kids whether or not you choose to be married.

3. If you do want to get married, you can marry either a blue or pink person. And you yourself can be either a blue or pink person.

4. You can have a boyfriend or girlfriend rather than a spouse.

5. You don't have to buy a house.

6. We don't count the money at the end - because Ethan manages to win every time we play. (He also ends up with the most children).

When anyone lands on the "get married" spot, I usually hear: "I know, I know mom... we can get married to a boy or girl... or we don't have to get married. But I want to marry a girl, and I want her to be pink - Is that ok?"

I've also mentioned that some people get married to several others... to which 8-year-old Zayd stared at me blinking slowly for about 6o seconds. He finally said, "Why in the world would you want to have more than one person to be married to? That sounds like too much work to me."

No one has yet to follow my lead against the norm. I am the only one who had not gotten married, married a woman, been a blue person and married another blue person, or has picked up a boyfriend. I have had children, not had children, had children without getting married to either a pink or blue person, and gotten married without having children.

I also do not buy a house - ever.

I tell the boys I live in my car.

Despite all this, they still continue to ask me to play "Life" with them.

I'm trying as hard as I can to change this.