Why don't parents play games with their kids?

One of the neighbor kids, the brother of a kid who plays with my oldest son, had been asking me about Rock Band the past week or so. I could tell he was angling to borrow it, but I wasn't receptive to the idea. I guess he'd take decent care of it, but I really didn't want to get in the habit of lending my stuff out to kids.

Today, through his younger brother, he flat out asked to borrow it. I said no at first, but then I started to feel bad. I hadn't played it in over a month, it's actually CraigsListed along with the rest of my 360 stuff. (no one wants to buy a used 360, the console renown for failing...go figure!) I finally conceded to lend it to him, with the caveat that his parents are fully aware that if he breaks anything, they're replacing it.

I brought everything over to their house and set it all up. The parents, who I know pretty well, don't know squat about games. Not only do they know nothing about them, they don't seem to have any interest in playing them with their kids. I just don't get that. They're the same age as me, we're the 2600 generation. How could they not at least look at something like Rock Band and want to play it at least a little, particularly if their kids are asking them to play? Color me flabbergasted.

My oldest son is not quite four yet, and I can't wait until we can play games together. With my recent acquisition of a Wii, we've been playing a little coop Mario Galaxy, some Wii Play/Sports stuff and he's a pretty big fan of the craptastic Cars game. But, we're not really playing games together yet, he's not old enough. I couldn't imagine him being 12, playing something like Rock Band or Halo and not being right there with him. I'm anxious for those days to arrive.