When Henry was quite young, my friend Brittany asked me about my stance on little boys playing with guns. Hmmm. Stance? I'll be honest; I had NEVER thought about it once. But here I was with a sweet little innocent boy, and an intelligent friend that was urging me to think of an important parenting matter. How was I even allowed to become a parent? Shouldn't all prospective parents have certain prerequisites? Or at least be required to form opinions on important matters so their children would be raised deliberately, and not by happenstance? Well. That didn't happen. So here I was, confronted with the matter, and forced to form an opinion. Of course I'm not going to let this sweet little thing play with weapons and pretend to kill people. The very thought was morbid to me.
So, come Christmas, when my parents very lovingly gave Henry a foam disc shooter, I conveniently forgot to pack it and bring it on the airplane home. When water guns were given as party favors, I tossed them out before they even touched Henry's then pristine little fingers. I did everything I could to keep this child from being tainted by the violence of this world.
Guess what?
There is NOTHING you can do! Every toy baseball bat, golf club, and stick horse has turned into a weapon in our house. Look at that pile of Tinkertoy guns! If you don't give them weapons, they will invent them! I refused to work in Henry's gun factory the other day, and I can't think of anything more perverse than joining my boys in their shooting games and pretending to kill my own children! I will not do it. I have done everything, short of burning all the toys in our house, to keep them from wanting to pretend to kill everyone. Still, Henry is manufacturing weapons, and Ellis proudly uses the word "Gun!" as part of his sweet little vocabulary. They found the neighbors' water guns outside and snuck them into our house for an afternoon of manslaughter. I tried my hardest to not freak out and just calmly state that I don't appreciate people pretending to kill other people.
Is there something about boys that I am not getting? I cannot understand how this could happen to two little boys who aren't exposed to any violence in the media or elsewhere. What have I done wrong? Seriously, I want to know. Be frank in your comments. I can take it.
21 comments:
Hilarious! We had similar issues with Evan, who started out learning to play with Polly Pockets and dolls from his big sisters, but suddenly I found him biting his cheese sandwich into a gun shape and shooting me at the table.
Sorry. I think little boys are just born with sound effects and a love of weapons. It just happens. And you will hopefully one day have a little girl and be shocked to see that she does NOT make sound effects. Not part of her DNA.
Might as well give in and get him a good Nerf sword to go with his guns! :)
All of my nephews love pretending to shoot each other and talk about guns frequently. They rarely watch TV and don't own any video games, so it does seem to be a natural inclination for them. It makes Dave and I uncomfortable and we definitely don't want our children to play like that. But Dave and I both played with water guns and nerf guns growing up and we think we turned out okay! :)
I bet Henry is going to love the present I already bought him for his birthday!
Not to disappoint you, but on Wednesday night Autumn said, "You sure are obsessed with guns lately." Looks like there is no end to this madness. Sorry Jenn. Give up now or get run over by the Second Amendment. We men have an innate drive to protect ourselves and those we love, and if it takes guns to do it, so be it. Nothing wrong with that. Killing stuff for fun, yeah, maybe that's not so good. Maybe playing with toy guns is a good way to get it out of his system while he's young?
Yup, they're just born with it. We tried to avoid it all, too, but to no avail. Just make sure they shoot the "bad guys" (as Daniel loves to exclaim now) and never real people.
Paul regularly goes to the pawn shop to lust after guns.
There's definitely nothing you've done wrong. Ryan's sister had three girls and then a boy. She was very adamant that her son wasn't going to play with guns, but the love affair began and continues.
My sister (mother of 3 boys) was hard core in her stance against guns/swords,...any weapon of all. But to no avail. Just like Henry they turned anything and everything into weapons and the more my sister fought against it, the more they did it. She now has a huge "weapons bin" full of guns, swords, etc... and 3 of the cutest, sweetest boys ever. I think you could give Henry an entire weapons stash and he would still be as sweet and kind as ever.
It happened to me too, I think you just have to except that its there and teach them why its not ok to play that way.
I think you're an amazing mom. I'm appalled that Paul lusts after guns. Just appalled. That's probably why Shug has never told me. And I don't think you should give up and accept it. I think you should continue to keep guns and violence out of your house, and continue to disapprove of children pretending to kill each other. Because it's un-Christlike. And the idea of anybody having fun pretending to kill/killing anyone or anything is morbid and frightening. So I say, keep on keepin' on, Griff. That's what I'm going to do. But hey, what do I know? I'm still childless, so it's easy for me to keep all my ideals intact :)
So here's my question:
I know it's un-Christlike to kill people. What I didn't include in my post is that the only exposure my children have had to violence is through reading the scripture stories. The Bible and Book of Mormon are ridiculously violent! And it's usually stories about the good guys killing the bad guys. So why is there a discrepancy here?
Thanks for holding out strong. I'm still pondering on this one.
But I don't think there is a discrepancy. First, there are lots of stories in the Bible and the Book of Mormon about peace, and lots of anti-war and anti-violence stories (most obvious being, of course, the anti-Nephi-Lehies, but there are many many others as well). Second, although there is also a lot of war in the scriptures, there is no glory or goodness or beauty in it. Generally speaking, it seems to be this last-resort, terrible but necessary thing. The difference between the good guys and the bad in the scriptures, especially in the Book of Mormon, is that the good "do not delight in the shedding of blood." The bad guys generally do. Somehow when we think of Captain Moroni we imagine war as glorious and honorable and exciting (it might be due to that crappy art we keep perpetuating, or it might be our zealous seminary teachers trying to keep us awake at 6am). But captain Moroni and Mormon and every other "good guy" in the Book of Mormon really seemed to sorrow because of war - even when it was for a righteous cause. And I think we have to remember and contextualize that for our kids. And I definitely don't think anything in the Book of Mormon encourages or justifies or condones pretending to shoot and kill your mom or your siblings or anyone else. To me, that's delighting in the shedding of blood. So when we read the scriptures we should help our children understand what a sad and awful thing it was that Moroni and his people had to fight and kill the Lamanites, their brethren. But I VERY strongly believe that God wants us to be a peaceful and peace-loving people, and I feel required to teach my children that.
And now I'm going to step off my soap box and call you.
Grif--I don't have boys, just my two girls who don't show any sense of violence in that way (other than hitting occasionally but it's not a game to them). I have thought about this over and over in the past so to be prepared when/if we have a boy I don't want to be caught in this dilemma unprepared with a stance. I really didn't have a good answer. And I'm not sure I do even still. I do feel that most boys come by that naturally for some reason. Just like they seem to get more dirty and gross than girls. But does that mean just because they have that in their systems that you should feed into it at such a young age? I don't think so. I do like Brittany's last comment though. I just doubt you'll be able to fight with a boy and husband over that for very long. Good luck. I know you'll come to the right thing for you and your family. You're amazing!
Of all the "raising boy" books that I have read, playing with swords and guns and their fascination to make everything a weapon is a healthy and normal part of boy development...so you have "done nothing wrong." Henry seems like a pretty normal boy. I think one book even said that trying to prohibit boys from playing out these "fantasies" because you fear your child will be obsessed with violence can actually backfire... I'll have to find that source for you if you are interested. Now kids who are exposed to graphic violence and then re-enact, that's completely different...which Henry isn't-- so you can relax and just know its part of a healthy, normal boy development. I have to say that we have had some really fun FHE activities where Andrew has planned a family Nerf gun battle (yes, we each have our own Nerf gun). Lots of laughing and fun memories for the boys (of playing and chasing with mom and dad, making plans and hideouts; not so much about the "shooting" like our adult brains seem to focus in on with guns).
That is so true! There is nothing you can do . . they figure it out by themselves. We just tell them no shooting at 'real people', just make believe ones and other things.
As I read the part about not letting them play with guns to Paul he exclaimed, "Oh no! He's goign to become a gang drug dealer!"Paul's convinced that if you don't let them play with guns, then someday someone will give him a real gun and he'll think it's so cool he's going to shoot someone with it.
And apparently, he's never been to the Pawn shop to look at guns, but I happen to know he would love a pistol.
Oh, and Brittany, I'll have you know I didn't appreciate your seminary teacher comment either! Seminary teachers would NEVER stoop to such tactics.
Jenn, you really hit a nerve with this blog post and question. We've never seen so many responses to one post and as parents of three kind, gentle adult boys who you know well, we say confidently, "let boys be boys." Modern society has greyed the line between male and female and little good has come of it. We need men to be men and their natures are God-given in order to fill their role as protectors in the family. In the world today, hopefully that doesn't mean they will need to use guns or swords, but even that may be required in times of war. Children that our children knew growing up who were denied certain things by their parents, always seemed to go overboard toward those things when out of their parent's control (TV, candy, violent toys, etc.). We saw it all as our kids grew up and I determined right then that my children's exposure to potentially destructive things would come from me and not from some outside source when I had no control. Your gentle husband and his brothers were all exposed to guns and swords as young boys along with balls and Legos and the balance never seemed to make any of them violent in any way. Control the TV and video games and never study the Old Testament! There certainly was a lot of violence in those stories and it didn't come as a last resort option! (O.T. Numbers 31) Every week we teach our YSA Sunday School class we wonder how much of the truths in the O.T. we should expose them to and we are teaching 18-year olds and above! Scary.
You're doing a great job with Henry and Ellis. We can't name a better mother. Don't worry if they act like boys . . . that's what they are and what you want them to be.
Looking at the data presented here it appears that what we are dealing with is a sex-linked gene for guns. :) Henry appears to have the much more common dominant gene. I suspect some boys get the recessive variety, but not many. Henry's Grandpa definitely has the dominant gene. For over twelve years, starting at age three, I was the best cowboy on Lakeview Drive. The only problem I had was getting my friends to be Indians. For the most part, we had to use imaginary Indians. But they worked, and we killed a lot of them. At twelve I got my first real gun and was taught to respect it and differentiate it from what we had played with as children. The two were entirely different - one was play, the other was reality. I didn't confuse them, and your boys won't either. Don't worry about Henry and Ellis. Grandpa I.
What a great discussion. I have just started to see this tendency coming from Asher, who up until now has been happy to play with My Little Ponies with his sister. :) I saw a similar discussion somewhere else on-line and one mom said that she explained to her sons that God gave boys strong muscles so they can protect their sisters or moms, so they should never use those strong muscles to hurt them. I did try explaining this to Asher, but he just told me he didn't have strong muscles because he couldn't open big doors. :)
I'm with most everyone else on this list. I'm just thrilled to know your boys are normal like mine. Before I ever gave Nate a gun or sword he was inventing them out of his plastic golf clubs. I think there's nothing you can do to stop it and we've had great times having battles at our house. Everyone gets into them and we all got nerf guns for Christmas and had the time of our lives (even my girl eagerly joined in). We love to ambush each other and I don't think shooting each other will have any negative effect. In fact, I think just the opposite. By not repressing it, I think they won't be obsessed by guns and swords as they get older.
I'm very comfortable letting my boys and girls play with nerf swords and guns and I don't think there's much you can do to stop them. They're hardwired that way. Just join in the fun and they will have even better memories of it and so will you!
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