Grand Theft Auto: Marrakech

GTA and I go way back - in the way that arch enemies do. It was just four short years ago that I was banging heads with my high school freshman about his desire to purchase this video game. My general distaste for video games had turned to loathing in the face of GTA and its excessive violence and questionable moral compass. I fought the good fight and lost.  GTA joined air soft guns and soda in the teenage winner's circle. I moved on to other parenting battles and let that one go. I regrouped and tried to anticipate which firm line in my parenting sand would be next to disintegrate.

Foster, that stubborn high school freshman, is now a freshman in college. Somehow he came through the GTA phase unfazed. He has yet to commit any senseless acts of violence and seems to know the difference between right and wrong. While we are living out our Moroccan adventure, he's back in Vermont paving his own way. Yesterday, I heard Nolan laughing delightedly in his bedroom. When I went in to see what was going on, he gave me an ear-to-ear grin. "I'm playing GTA with Foster." 

I couldn't have been happier. I turned a blind-eye to the game's gratuitous violence and gave thanks for the sibling bond that it's helping to maintain. Oceans apart and separated by time zones, the geographical distance and age difference melted away as my boys teamed up to focus on their mission in the criminal underworld. Connections through virtual crime were never what I anticipated when I imagined the bonds that would hold our family together over the years. But, I have to admit, when I saw that sneaky smile on my boy's freckled face and heard him laughing out loud with his older brother who is so far away, my heart softened just a little bit toward GTA. If I can't have peace, love, and happiness all the time, I guess I'll take organized crime with a side of brotherly love.