My ten-year-old daughter is in tears after - against my better judgement - I succumbed to the lure of "Daddy Daughter Time" on a Sunday Morning and cleaned her out with a hotel on Tennesee Avenue. Monopoly™ is a seductive, sadistic game that entices children by all that brightly colored money and parents by the thought of some wholesome family fun, then goes on interminably and invariably ends up raising stress and bringing out the worst impulses of all concerned.
And that is the point. It arose, after all, in the Great Depression, and has its roots in The Landlord's Game, devised in the early 20th century by a Quaker do gooder to demonstrate the inequities of unsubsidized housing. Nowadays it demonstrates the evils of devoting too much time to being aquisitive at the expense of those you love.
I'm going out for a walk. With my little girl. And later, we will make a fire in the fireplace. Kindled with Monopoly™ money.
Zero SUN, my dear? It was dark? No wonder she cried.
I remember hating Monopoly as a child, too. And it NEVER ENDS.
Posted by: Janet Finegar | October 17, 2010 at 03:56 PM