13-year-old has baby, plays PlayStation
This one is for mature audiences only.
The whole of Britain is aghast and, quite naturally, deeply interested in the story of Alfie Patten, a 13-year-old boy who has just become a father for the first time. Yes, he and his maybe girlfriend, 15-year-old Chantelle Steadman, are celebrating the birth of little Maisie.
And they're toasting their bliss like every other newly-blessed couple- with a touch of PlayStation.
In these wonderful, touching pictures, baby Maisie rests in Alfie's lap, while he fights off fatherhood's lack of sleep by fighting a bunch of drug dealers in Stilwater Prison. He is, indeed, enjoying the carnage of Saints Row 2.
"It was easier that I thought," Alfie told the Sun newspaper. No, he was not referring to the charming hand-to-hand combat of the game, but rather to the first night of the hand-to-mouth tribulations of being a father.
I know that those of you who adore Saints Row 2 will be aware that it is something of an adult pleasure. So you, too, will find additional symbolism in the fact that Alfie adores this game, rated for 18s and over in the UK, rather than something a touch more family-friendly.
Your face will, perhaps, crease in involuntary ecstasy when I tell you there have been overnight developments worthy of Saints Row 2.
In the game, respect has to be earned. Well, imagine, then, the human respect-o-meter this morning as two other teenage boys, Richard Goodsell, aged 16 and 14-year-old Tyler Barker have emerged from their playrooms to declare that they might be the father of little Maisie and not Alfie.
I am sure that you, too, are only waiting for the first wise academic to declare that this sort of behavior is the fault of the video game culture. And regular readers will know how we feel about academic video game research here.
Alfie is just as much of an adult for playing Saints Row 2 as he is for allegedly fathering a child. An amount that might be described as not at all.
Maisie, take that console away from Daddy and see if you can slap him with it.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
Oh, I'm not blaming the game at all. It's funny that some people might have got that impression. It's Alfie's pretensions to adulthood I find a little sad. Because, as you say, where are the parents?
Chris
- by epicshit February 21, 2009 1:23 AM PST
- i envey this kid
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