I'm not a big fan of guns and was kind of wondering how I would feel when the kids inevitably became fascinated with them. On the other hand (Felix, you can vouch for me here) the vast majority of games I played outside of school as a child were "war games." And look how fabulously peaceful I turned out. ;)
We recently got a couple of squirt guns after the kids found one that someone had left outside the library. I was somewhat surprised to discover that I didn't have any negative emotional reaction at all. I mean, these weren't Big Scary Guns, they were Fun Plastic Toys.
Yesterday we went to the park to meet friends and Larkin and Finn were very excited to take their new squirt guns with them. I remembered at the last minute that the family we were going to meet did not allow their children to play with guns. I told the kids what I remembered and said I thought it would probably be pretty rude to take our squirt guns to the park. Finn wanted to know why it would be rude. I asked him to imagine watching other kids play with something that looked Absolutely Fascinating only to be told that he couldn't touch it. He didn't think that sounded like fun and both kids agreed it would be friendlier to leave the squirt guns and play with them when we got home. Larkin wanted to know why some kids aren't allowed to play with guns. My best off the cuff answer went something like "Real guns are powerful and destructive things... it freaks some people out to see kids treating something as a toy that has caused so much trouble in the real world." Larkin summoned up some remarkably righteous indignation (I think this is almost verbatim): "But these aren't real guns! I don't want to play with real guns! Do people really think kids are so stupid we can't tell the difference between a weapon and a toy!?!?"
Whew, dodged that bullet. So to speak. I wasn't quite ready to go all gun control and break the news to them that children are killed every year because they were playing with their parents' guns. All things in time.
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If i remember correctly most of our 'war games' were just running around outside making stuff up with very little regard for consistency, drawing heavily on whatever books we were reading at the time. With occasional dirt clods and sticks as stand in props for the swords and projectile weapons we didnt actually have. ;-)
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, i seem to remember that conflicts of all sorts played a key role in keeping things interesting ...
Potato guns, my niece and nephew definitely need potato guns. Or at least cap guns. Time for uncle to come bearing gifts i guess. heh.
i don't know... i remember being pretty proud when i finally figured out how to make machine gun noises, so i don't think it was all as low tech as swords and trebuchets. :)
ReplyDeleteand no, i certainly didn't mean to intimate that we actually *had* any of these weapons... just that they figured heavily into our imaginary play.