Parenting Cute Little Minecraft Addicts

The idolatry of technology?

One day, my son ‘Abel’ asked me to give him a notebook so he can write a journal about his feelings during the day. When he came home from school, he asked me to read it.

Me, reading: "Trail ruins may have once had [sic] connected old villages". This is your journal? 

‘Abel’: It starts with Minecraft lore. The real journal is going to start later. 

Abel’s journal entries, filled with Minecraft lore rather than his own experiences, made me realize just how deeply this game had infiltrated their thoughts and daily lives.

Confession: My kids are addicted to Minecraft.

How did it happen?

A hundred years ago, Seth and Abel¹ might have been toiling away in real coal mines. Today they labor in the digital mines … of Minecraft.

It started innocently enough, with YouTube videos. Abel hasn’t slept since birth, except for when he is on prescription medication or sick enough to be unconscious, and for many years we used screen time to survive the night.² Abel wanted to watch videos of people playing games, which sounded wholesome.

We said yes, resolving to find gamer videos of people playing Minecraft while praying, doing acts of kindness, and studying the Bible, as pictured below.³

Isha Yiras Hashem

Alas, the Gamer YouTube videos they ended up watching weren’t educational at all. At best, they were teaching the kids bad words. At worst, they modeled poor communication and disrespect. These videos had millions of views and likes —many from my own personal YouTube account! What a waste of the children’s time!

Seth and Abel seemed particularly fascinated by a game called Minecraft. They would watch other people play this game for hours. Actively playing a game had to be healthier and more educational than watching other people play.

My brilliant idea (That was not brilliant. At all.)

My brilliant idea went like this: I'd have everyone share one device. They'd self-police because they'd want equal turns, allowing me to spend less time working as the household referee, and more time writing important posts like this.

While my initial idea to have the kids share one device seemed foolproof, it quickly backfired. Instead of fostering cooperation, it fueled their obsession even more. In fact, I've never been more wrong in my life.⁴

Interlude: our 21st century baby

But before discussing my parenting failures, let's talk about our new Baby, who takes a pacifier. I have never had a child willing to take a pacifier before, and it is a lovely, soothing convenience. Sometimes I ask the kids to put the pacifier back into the baby's mouth when he cries.

Even our baby has been assimilated into this tech-savvy culture. When his pacifier drops out of his mouth, Seth and Abel call it "plugging him in" and cheerfully announce he's "charging" once it's back in place.

They're definitely onto something there. Like modern technology, babies make noises to get your attention. When they make noise, we check them as soon as we can and try to figure out if it's important. Even if the noise isn't important, he's still fun to snuggle with.

Here's a Venn Diagram.

Minecraft is surprisingly educational

During one Shabbat meal, Seth and Abel were sitting, without either fighting or spilling anything, at the table. As many of you know, I love telling Biblical stories, especially about the book of Daniel.⁵ It seemed like a good moment to tell the story of when King Nebuchadnezzar threw Daniel's friends into his huge, ancient furnace for refusing to bow to his huge gold idol.⁶

I started by explaining the furnace.

Me: "Remember how Daniel's friends bravely told Nebuchadnezzar that they would only bow to their own G-d, who, by the way, is strong enough to save them from a fire if he wanted to, but even if He chooses not to, they would still refuse to bow? The punishment for not bowing down to Nebuchadnezzar's Golden Idol was being thrown into a fiery furnace. Do you know what a fiery furnace is?"⁷

(I pause to give them a second to think about it.)

Seth, nonchalantly: "You smelt things in its fire. Iron, metal, copper."

(Abel nods.)

Me, very impressed: "How do you know what a furnace is?"

Abel: "It's a thing in Minecraft, Mommy! Everyone knows what it is."

Wow! I had really underestimated how educational computer games can be for learning biblical stories. I was so blown away that I didn't even check if they knew the definition of "smelt." Imagine, Minecraft as a religious and historical teaching tool!

So, for a while, we let them continue to play Minecraft, especially since I was pregnant and low energy.

There seemed to be no such thing as too much Minecraft. One morning, I awoke to the sound of the boys crying. It was 5:00 in the morning, and only G-d knows how long they had been playing.

Me: "Why are you crying?"

Seth and Abel: "The Minecraft machine died."

Me: "I'm sorry to hear that. We can bury it in the yard, but only after you get dressed and ready for school."

Abel: "Don't be silly, Mommy! It's not dead! It just needs charging!"

Me: "That makes sense. It's unconscious and it needs to be revived.”

Abel: “It just needs to be plugged in.”

Seth: "Where is the plug?"

Me: "I will find the plug after you go to school. While it isn't deceased, the Minecraft machine is very tired from being played with all night. It needs to sleep all day today."

Seth: "You don't know about Minecraft. The way it works is, it just runs out of battery and dies!"

Me: "Thank you for explaining. If it can live or die, it can certainly fall sick from being used all the time."⁸

Abel: "We'll do anything to get our Minecraft machine back!"

Me, ignoring this: "Right now, it is clearly unconscious. Give it time to recover. If it goes viral, it may end up in the hospital, where it could be weeks before it gets discharged."⁹

This was the perfect opportunity to teach a lesson about the impermanence and non-sentient nature of electronic devices. We needed a serious detox from Minecraft in particular. So I hid the Minecraft machine. That is where this post should end, but to be honest, it didn't, mostly because I don't have all the answers when it comes to parenting.

**The Fake Story I Would Like to Post on Instagram:**

Due to our excellent parenting, genetics, and role-modeling behavior (of course), the children took this very well. They used the extra time in the morning for praying and helping me get the younger ones ready for school. They practiced their Hebrew reading during breakfast, when they weren't playing chess or cleaning the chicken coop.

Why, they hardly noticed that Minecraft was gone. I began to worry that they might forget what a furnace was. Perhaps I was depriving them of valuable insights into the book of Daniel.

None of this happened.

Conclusion: My unsuccessfully rehabilitated children think about Minecraft.

It's been months, and the kids still think about Minecraft—a lot. Here are some real quotes, posted with permission.

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Seth: "Remember you said that when the Messiah comes, all lost items will be returned to their owners?"¹⁰

Me: "Yes."

Seth: "So will I get back my Plants vs. Zombies profile that disappeared? Or the Minecraft worlds Abel deleted by mistake?"

Me: "Let's ask your dad."

---

Abel: "You know what I figured out? The people who make Minecraft make it for money. They don't even have any fun with it! They want money more than they want to play Minecraft!"

(He accepts the idea that Minecraft is a business, but it seems foolish to him to value profits over the joy of playing the game.)

---

Seth: "I keep kosher in Minecraft by not killing pigs for food. Only cows, sheep, and chickens."

Me: “You said there's mushrooms?”

Seth: “Moo-shrooms.”

---

Abel: "The villagers in Minecraft are like any other robot. The only reason they're alive is that they have souls in them. Maybe the soul part is from children who died."

Me, looking up: "There's souls in Minecraft?"

Abel: "Only if you have a mod for souls."

(A mod for souls? I give up.)

---

Seth: "Chain armor is the best armor in Minecraft. It's better than silver, better than gold, and better than iron, even though it's made of iron."

Me: "Why is it the best one?"

Seth: "I said it's one of the best ones. It's one step back from diamond. It's impossible to enchant anything until you get to netherite. You need a smithing table and a full diamond, and it cannot be enchanted, or else it's not going to work."

(I tried very hard to look fascinated.)

---

Please, if you are reading this and have any ideas or insights, let me know either here in the comments or email ishayirashashem@gmail.com.

1. Not their real names.

2. Yes, I am aware that this is a fascinating medical anomaly, and interested medical researchers are welcome to observe this, in a professional setting, on their own time, all night.

3. Let me know if you find any.

4. Actually, I was recently even more wrong than this, but that's for a different post.

5. https://ishayirashashem.substack.com/p/thought-he-would-live-forever

6. Daniel chapter 3

7. The fiery furnace into which Nebuchadnezzar threw Daniel's friends (Daniel 3:19-25) is the same furnace that Abraham was thrown into by Nimrod in Genesis (Genesis 11:28). This furnace was located in Ur Kasdim, later part of Babylon. Ur Kasdim is often identified with the city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia, near modern-day Nasiriyah in Iraq. In Babylonian context, it was known as Ur of the Chaldees.

8. There’s a Hasidic story about a man who borrows a silver fork from his neighbor. When he returns it, he gives back two silver forks, explaining that the fork had given birth while in his care. The neighbor, delighted, accepts the explanation and becomes even more willing to lend him items. This continues, with the man returning more than he borrowed each time. Eventually, the neighbor lends him a beautiful gold candelabra, hoping for a similar reward. However, when the man returns, he sadly informs the neighbor that the candelabra has died. The neighbor protests, "A candelabra can't die!" To which the man replies, "But can a fork give birth?"

9. Excuse the pun.

10. In 1 Samuel 9, Samuel reunites Saul with his lost donkeys, as Elijah will reunite people with their lost possessions in the future.