I know this question has been asked a lot of times and is highly debated in society, so here it comes… should children play with toy guns?
A while back I told my husband I don’t want our son to play with toy guns. For me it just feels so wrong on so many levels.
Recently my son had his third birthday party and while I was planning it I was wondering how to go about things. Would it be rude to tell all the moms to please not give toy guns for a gift?
And what would happen if someone did give my son a toy gun for his birthday what would I do?
So the situation was taken out of my hands because time goes so fast and the birthday party was organized in a rush of chaos since it was December. We got home from his birthday party laden with gifts.
When he opened all his presents he got two guns. One was in a SWAT team set. A big black gun that made machine gun noises. The other a harmless and fun water gun.
Now where do you draw the line? Are water guns fine? Are brightly coloured guns fine while black realistic looking guns aren’t?
My son was over the moon with all of his gifts, especially the big black gun. He started charging around the house telling us he is shooting us dead.
My heart dropped, it was all so wrong but how could I now break his heart by taking away his prized gun?
Fortunately toys are not made to last and by the end of the following day this black gun was broken into pieces and I could throw it away.. by the way I am going to be writing a post soon about the terrible quality of the toys today!
I’m not going to go into all the points that people have brought up for and against toy guys, the simple fact for me is that guns are intended to kill people. Guns are associated with violence.
For me it is just not ok for my children to play with toy guns. I will never feel fine with it and I am going to go with my gut feel on this.
For my son’s next birthday I will remember to let all the moms know to please not give any toy guns. I also make a point never to buy toys guns for anyone else’s kids.
Violence vs Nudity and Sex?
Something happened at the school a few weeks ago that I just wanted to share about that fits in a bit with this topic.
My son is… shall we just say quite boisterous right now. He is an angry little toddler, throwing tantrums and yes he is hitting and kicking too. So he is being a typical three year old boy.
There were a good few times I collected my kids from school and a teacher told me that he had been misbehaving.
On the one occasion she said he had hit one child twice through the face with his bottle (reminds me of my drinking days…)
I was very embarrassed and told the teacher I would deal with it. Each time she brushed it off saying she just wanted to let me know, but you know they do that at this age.
Then I arrive at the school and this same teacher tells me in a very serious manner that my son has been incredibly naughty today and it is serious.
I start to panic wondering what could be worse than my nearly 3 year old hitting kids in the face.
She tells me that twice that day my son pulled down his pants in the sandpit and showed the other children his bum.
I blink wondering what else is coming for this to be so bad right? When it is clear nothing else is coming I start giggling.
This did not impress the teacher who then told me that if I am laughing my children will see it and think it is a laughing matter. She said that the school is conservative and don’t take this sort of behaviour lightly.
Now I wasn’t laughing because my son flashed his cute little butt cheeks at school, I was actually giggling at the craziness of the fact that this school considers a 3 year flashing his butt a much more serious offence than hitting another child twice, hard through the face with an object.
Where is the sense in that I ask?
At this moment my son made an appearance. Wearing only his tshirt, flashing all his bits to me, the teacher and the entire class. He was holding a full toilet roll that was dripping wet and when he saw me he asked me to please help him. When he turned around his cute little but cheeks covered in poop flashed at the class.
Now I have to keep a straight face?
See now I don’t consider myself the type of mother that let’s anything go, but I do feel that I have my priorities straight. I have no issue with nudity or sex. Yes for sure I am not talking about porn here, but if my kids walk into the room and the tv is on I would much rather have them walk in on a sex scene or a bit of nudity than a scene of violence.
I’ve noticed that tv programs and movies regularly show violence, even in cartoons. We live in a world that is so desensitized to violence and where our children grow up surrounded by this.
We live in a society where there is so much crime and violence, yet we allow our kids to play with a toy replica of a killing machine?
We live in a society with skewed values where butt cheeks are forbidden but violence towards another is ok? Well I’m sorry but I go the other way on this one.
I say bring out the cute butt cheeks and stop the violence.
What do you think? Should Children Play with Toy Guns?
