Because I can remember a time when loving all things geeky meant you might go through your entire youth without meeting more than one other person who got all your jokes and references, I love, love, LOVE what the internet and social media have done for sci fi and fandom in general. It’s FANTASTIC! Allons-y!
But do you know what happens when you are a geek, you marry a geek, and then you have kids? It’s not Geek x 2. It’s Geek to the power of N. How do I know this? Because my son, who is not yet seven, loves Star Wars so much that the nimbus surrounding his fandom has brought my own Star Wars knowledge to a level that would have made me extremely desirable to the opposite sex when I was in college. (Well, at cons, anyway.) It’s like a geekdom contact high. The trivia sinks in without you realizing it and the next thing you know, you’re making valentine cards for his class and thinking to yourself, “Well, I see that these are the classic Lego Star Wars figurines, since they hadn’t yet transitioned to the cartoon-ish style meant to evoke the animated…. WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED.”
I’m sure there will come a time when one of my sons has a pervasive enthusiasm that I don’t “get” nearly as well as I do this one, and that it will be a totally different experience. But right now, at this moment in galactic time, I’m astonished to report that the ability to immerse myself totally in fiction is a parenting skill. I wasn’t really prepared for it to go subliminal, but in this gig, you have to just roll with it, right?
Hey, you know where geek moms hang out, right? Add me to your circles on Google + and we can geek out on our geekdom.
