War Play

One afternoon while we were in Bali, my husband, then 22 month old son and I were playing soccer with our friends, an Australian couple with four children (ages 8, 6, 4 & three weeks older than our son Fyo). My son Fyo learned his love of soccer from our friends the Australians; he fell in love with chasing the ball, then setting it in the grass to kick it. So I was surprised when out of nowhere, he quit paying attention to the ball and instead picked up a stick in the grass and used it as a gun to shoot our friend’s six year old.

My husband and I haven’t owned a television since before we were married. Our friends didn’t own a television. In Indonesia, possession of a gun will get you life in prison. If the gun discharges a bullet, the owner faces the death penalty. I felt pretty secure in knowing that my toddler son had not seen any outside influence where he would have learned such a thing, excepting other children. I felt baffled as I watched what I of course consider my perfect child participate in potentially violent pretend play.

Guns and violence in general makes me squeamish. I don’t like the sight of them. I can’t help but feel sickened when I see children playing with toy guns. I don’t want my son to own a toy gun. I don’t want him to want one.

But I don’t want to be that mother who forbids something and is unwilling to have a discussion about it either. I especially don’t want to be that mother who, when she sees her son shoot his pretend stick gun, flips out in some kind of Mommy Dearest tirade.

In that moment, what I instead do is act nonchalant and as if my son’s gun pretend play is no different than his pouring a cup of tea pretend play.

My Australian friend reassures me that mothers disliking gun play is perfectly normal, but that she’s noticed Americans especially are scared and squeamish around guns. I point out that Americans have earned their fear of guns. As a nation, we’ve faced several tragedies involving guns. She points out that guns are a tool and like any other tool require instruction and respect in handling. I agree with her, but I still can’t help my stomach turning over when I see a gun.

When I get home to my family in Portland, gun pretend play again becomes a topic of conversation between my siblings and I, as the three of us all have sons (not a girl in the lot). My sister points out that it’s unfair to not allow boys to have their pretend play while girls can pretend play with kitchens, babies, Barbies, and princesses as much as they want even as that too makes us squeamish about the potentially sexist messages we may be sending them.

Yet my sister-in-law was raised in Serbia where there is still a compulsory 2-year military service. She was a shooter. She describes the strength, focus, and mindset it takes to fire a gun well. She just as easily could be describing a yoga practice. She did give her son a gun with strict rules for playing with it, and shortly after he lost interest in it.

At my grandmother’s house, my son pulls out the toy box full of toys that my siblings, cousins and I played with, and some of the toys, my dad and uncle played with. He finds the collection of water guns at the bottom. I ask myself if my squeamishness includes water guns – when I remember innocently running around my grandparents yard and shooting water at my siblings and cousins, thoughts of pretend wars the farthest thing from my mind. My son piles the water guns into the back of a dump truck. He isn’t thinking about war either.

My husband and I haven’t talked about how we’ll handle the subject of guns or war play with our son. I suspect gun education is much like sex education, in that it should be talked early and often so it’s no big deal; probably it is also similar to talking about sex in that kids are more aware of your discomfort with the subject than with what you are saying. So it’s my own discomfort – not my son’s pretend play – that I first am grappling with.