Tonight my daughter had a sleep over and our six year old had us all to himself. So we played Life – his choice.
It’s been awhile since either my husband or I have played, and the rules were missing from the box (imagine that).
My take: “Just spin, we’ll figure it out.”
My husband’s take: “This can’t be right – how do we know how much we get paid? How do we know our jobs?” The career cards were mixed in with the stack of action cards toward the bottom of the pile, but we couldn’t remember they even existed and didn’t know to look for them.
My son: “It’s Life, there are no rules.” (That’s an actual quote.)
We ended up finding the career cards and I made everyone’s pay retroactive after we figured out our jobs. I was a teacher, my son a cop and my husband a lawyer – until he got fired for bringing a cat into work.
I finished first with more than $2 million and a beach villa, no husband (I chose “life path” over “family path”) and a baby. I’m not sure how the baby happened; all I know is I landed on a baby square and ended up with a blue peg in the back of my car.
My son couldn’t understand why I did not choose the family path. “Not this time,” I said.
“You’re going to be so lonely,” he told me.
After I got to retire, my husband and son kept playing. I went to get a carbonated water, and when I came back in the living room, my husband was telling our son, “That’s a bad idea, you’re going to lose all your money.”
He wanted to buy a third house (his first two were a tee-pee and a eco-house).
“I can win it back,” was my son’s response. And he did.
It was all very meta – which, I get, is kind of the point with a game called Life.
Amy Gesenhues 
What do you think?