Parenting in a pandemic: Chaos, control, and an Animal Crossing meltdown

Enlarge / The author and her daughter in happier times, before the Great Coconut War of 2020.

Just ten days into the newest Animal Crossing, I was already embroiled in a fight about coconuts and trying to teach a first-grader about the tragedy of the commons.

That venture, like everything else in this cursed spring of 2020, did not go well.

This level of disquiet in my peaceful Animal Crossing universe is a first for me in well over a decade of play, going all the way back to Wild World for the Nintendo DS. Back in 2005, the portable town of Villains became my constant companion on my long subway rides from Brooklyn to Astor Place and back every day. Several years and several lifetimes later, my husband-at my request-found me a refurbished 3DS (shiny purple) for Christmas 2013. In 2014, I snapped up a copy of Animal Crossing: New Leaf for it that then accompanied me on my commute through Washington, DC, every day for more than 14 months.

Read 21 remaining paragraphs | Comments