Sounds really elaborate, shockingly so. Did they make that cake? Or was it bought?
I don't think I've ever seen a birthday cake that wasn't just something the birthday boy/girl liked with some candles on it. But then again, I am a recluse and have been to a grand total of one birthday outside of my immediate family
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About the video game thing...I do feel what we consume consumes us, although I don't think it is straight-forward how and when it does so and it'll have something to do with what the consumer brings to the consumption. I do think it is best to try and be mindful of problematic content you consume and especially enjoy and children tend to be more 'innocent' about consumption.
At the same time, I don't think CoD eats the mind of a child and turns him/her into a violent creature or anything. I'd imagine most anger issues a kid would have walking away from CoD would be similar to issues they have over-indulging in any electronic content.
Perhaps competition/frustration/frenetic, loud gameplay makes it worse than some games in a shorter time-frame?
It was said above but I think the sort of speech they hear has the potential to be more damaging, and again, that's stuff they are also likely to run into in things not-CoD. (So maybe no CoD as a subset of "no competitive, fast-paced online games with toxic voice chat communities? More so than as a military shooter.)
So yeah, I'm of two minds of "don't let your children CoD people!" Personally, if I had kids, I'd buy them platformers and stuff because that's what I liked as a kid (and still have an interest in) and I have a positive disinterest in CoD. And I do think there is something more innocuous about the subject matter of such games and also that content
does inform minds. I just don't think it is particularly clear how it does so and at what sort of generality.