March 24, 2005
The Quads
Jill Brooks, INtake columnist

Growing up with two siblings quickly turned to being the sister of six after my dad and step-mom had quadruplets. Now fourteen-years-old, the “Quads”, as we refer to them, just passed the rank of “tweens”. They’ve entered the stage to which no adult wishes to return, the awkward middle school years and its stack of adolescent nightmares. The language has changed since I was there: for instance, you no longer “go” with someone; but the one thing that remains steady between our two generations is video game mania. I, however, was never a maniac. My interest in Pong lasted about three minutes; Space Invaders, about a week; Pac Man, maybe two months. But the Quads are patrons of the video game empire, spending every last penny of babysitting or lawn mowing monies purchasing the latest diversion.

The ratings board for the video game industry recently announced a new category for children approaching their teenage years: E10+. The sad fact is that “E” for “everyone” games now bore pubescent kids who have no imagination; would rather catch a ride than take their bike; and wouldn’t dream of lying around on a Saturday reading books. “T” games, for teenagers, are for kids obviously old and mature enough to plunge into the world of graphic, senseless violence. So the tweens, darn it, those small people who haven’t even used four-syllable words yet, now have their own video game platform. Well, thank God.

The Quads are equal parts boys and girls, and for their fourteenth birthdays they took turns having sleepovers; the girls one weekend, the boys the next. I asked if they would get the Ouiji board out, light candles and have séances, or stay up all night making prank phone calls to the opposite sex. They gave me the teenage scoff, eyes rolling upward and the lips puckering to one side, explaining, “We’re playing video games.” Video games? Who’ll put the shaving cream on the kid who falls asleep first?

One of my young brothers wired together the television sets (they do exist) on each floor of their house. This way twelve boys could simultaneously blow each other up while playing a single video game, shouting from floor to floor, “Stop killing me!” So in an adrenalin trance they played, while pizza they ate, and no one was ever levitated by the incantation “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.” I begged my Dad to shield them from the primeval brutality of video mentality, but in this particular non-violent battle I lost.