[1]Gamer moms raise gamer kids…
Not too long ago, I was in an online roleplaying community hangout where I was the only woman and the conversation turned to the types of the people that play roleplaying games. The prevalence of men vs. women in the hobby came up and one guy commented sadly that his wife used to be a gamer but doesn’t play anymore. I asked him if she stepped back from RPGs around the time they started a family. The sudden realization on his face was pretty telling.
The demographics of who plays RPGs has become more inclusive over the decades I’ve played, but there are still more men than women. A couple of recent polls I found put it at 60% vs 39% [2], or in one that offered non-binary as an option, 54% vs. 38% [3]. I can’t attest to the accuracy of these polls, but it does line up with what I generally see in various gaming communities.
One part of this that I’ve noticed over the years is that women who start a family are more likely to withdraw from playing or running roleplaying games. Anytime someone has a baby, it’s a dramatic and life altering event and things are going to have to adjust to accommodate the new tiny human. But new fathers are far more likely to find the time to keep up with their hobbies, while new mothers are the ones that stay home with the little ones.
Plenty of people, not just women, give up the hobby once they transition from the freedom of a young adult life to one with more responsibilities like family and work. As incomprehensible as it is to me, for some people gaming isn’t a lifetime hobby. I do know several men that put gaming aside once they started full-time professional jobs or had kids, but it seems more of a forced choice for women with babies. When you combine the expected gender roles of parenting with gaming, you end up with plenty of couples where dads are back gaming soon after the baby was born (if they ever took a break at all) and moms who have to wait several years to play again, or even never come back to the gaming table.
Let me state for the record, I’m not a mother. I absolutely adore kids, but with the way my life played out, kids weren’t in the cards, and I’m not really upset at that. I’m perfectly content being the fun aunt or pseudo-aunt to all the kids in my life. When I decided to write this article, though, I wanted to talk to some gamers that also happen to be mothers. Their stories are varied but carry some similar themes.
- The first mom I talked to admitted that she had to put RPGs on hiatus when her kiddo was born. While the dad claimed he was helping, he was only doing about 10% of the caring for their child. He immediately resumed his hobbies, but she wasn’t able to play again until their child was well into grade school. During those years, she consoled herself with reading RPG books to stay on top of what was happening in the hobby, but there was no playing. No time at the table with friends rolling dice. Eventually she did get back into the hobby, and divorced that husband.
- When I spoke to the second mom, her situation was a bit different. While she did end up taking a hiatus from gaming, it wasn’t because of her husband’s lack of help, but from their gaming group rejecting the addition to their family. The group refused to game at their house once the baby was born, making it impossible for her to continue playing with them while her children were very young. She did say it was her choice to stay at home and let her husband go to game night, but it still forced her to give up gaming for a time. Eventually, when the kids were slightly older, the longing to play got too much for her so she started arranging for babysitters so she could rejoin the group. For many years, that was the status quo, but eventually other issues with that group not wanting kids around, even when they were college-aged and legitimate nerds in their own right, caused a rift and now she and her husband have moved on to other gaming options.
- Another mom I chatted with was the dominant gamer in the couple from the beginning. While her husband was absolutely a nerd, she introduced him to RPGs and was his first GM. When their kids were very little, they would play after the kids were in bed, with her GMing and her husband and brother playing. Ultimately, they had a good balance in sharing parental responsibilities with the kids, so when 5th edition came out and online gaming was a viable possibility, it was no issue for her to start up a larger group playing online through Roll20.
- The next mom met her husband in college where they played together with friends. Around the time they started their family, many of their college gaming friends were moving out of the area, breaking up the gaming group. Between the birth of the first kiddo and the second, she ran a campaign at their house for her husband and a bunch of friends. After the birth of their second child, they put their focus on getting their RPG fix at a couple of conventions throughout the year while grandparents would babysit. Mom said that the only real hurdle she ran into when the kids were babies was that the second kiddo decided to be born during Origins, causing them to miss the convention that year. When it comes down to it, because of the way they prioritized things, she found she had to make more sacrifices with her hobbies when the kids were older and needed to be ferried to various activities. She’s curated several great groups to play online, so there is no shortage of gaming nowadays.
- The very last mom I spoke to is a shiny, brand new mother. A couple of months before the baby arrived, she took a step back from gaming due to being exhausted. Making a human is hard work. Now that the baby is here, she and her husband are going through all of the fun chaos of adjusting to life with a tiny human. While they both have nerdy hobbies, she’s the one that’s into RPGs. Right now, they have a plan that will let both of them continue participating in their hobbies and provide for their new little buddy. She’s expecting to dive back into playing in a few months when the baby is a bit older.
So, what am I getting at here? There are a lot of rabbit holes we could go down discussing the dichotomy of expectations for parents based on their gender and how that affects participation in the RPG hobby, but that’s honestly a deeper topic than I want to get into. While there are plenty of people who choose to leave the hobby for a variety of reasons, let’s be aware of how the choice can be taken away from some women once they start having a family. I just want to talk about the struggles gaming moms face so maybe we can work a little harder to do better and make space for them at the gaming table.
If you’ve got gamers in your group that are new parents or about to be, try and be aware of how that is going to affect things and approach the situation with some compassion. In my long running group, we have always made it a policy of playing at the house of the person with the youngest kids for as long as we needed to keep that person in the group.
Having kids is a life altering experience, but it shouldn’t have to mean anyone leaves the hobby forever. After all, where are our future gamers going to come from?