Boys and Weapons

So. I grew up in a house full of girls. We loved Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women. My sisters and I were all cheerleaders. We had plenty of girl drama (for which my mother deserves to be sainted). Though we weren't prissy (we still loved climbing trees, riding bikes, playing in the creek and overalls...2 of us, at least!), we were still pretty girly at the end of the day. And the issue of guns as toys was...well, just never an issue.

Now I'm the mother of a 3 year old boy. Brad and I don't know yet what we think about boys having toy guns or weapons to play. I've avoided the issue. Mac does not yet know what a gun is.

When the subject has come up in conversations with other parents, people have always told me that even if we don't allow toy guns, boys will find a way to pretend gun play. I've always thought we'd start to deal with this later, as Mac got older and found more about the world.

But the weapons-as-toys issue has sneaked into our lives in a completely unexpected way--the Bible. True--Mac is still unaware of guns. But he does love swords and spears! It's amazing--both these are such tiny details in the stories we've read with Mac (Goliath and the story of Jesus' arrest when Peter cuts off the guard's ear). But he has fixated on them and is so curious about them--not in a scary or morbid way, but in a completely boyish, I-want-to-fight-the-bad-guys way. It's so crazy!! I never expected or understood how innate this issue really is to boys.

The jury's still out on our "policy" as parents on toy weapons. We'll see. But I do see and believe that they'll continue to be part of our life as parents to a boy. It's just ingrained into who he is as a boy. Whatever we decide, I do want to raise Mac with a view of weapons as honorable--a way to defend family and country, a way to provide food--and as items to be respected and handled with care. How we achieve that goal is yet to be determined!

In the meantime, I will continue to smile at Mac getting excited about Biblical weapons. What a boy.