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May 02, 2005
I surrender
Faced with yet one more occasion of Joseph meeting him at the door with a roar, a leap and an "I sword you!" Michael asked, "What does he watch on TV during the day?"
Hardly anything, I promise. And what he watches is quiet, gentle, slow-moving, non-violent. Maisy. Little Bear.
"The boring stuff," said Michael.
Well, yeah.
But it's just gone on and on - this obsession with "swording." Perhaps the little boy who's at his sitter is into it - it's quite possible, although Joseph says no, "Max don't say dat."
And mind you, it's not like I'm new at this. I've mothered two boys before, and was equally careful with them. No guns at all, not much television, etc. Once my mother gave Christopher one of those play Crusader suits - helmet, sword, shield with a big cross on it. "I thought it would be okay," she said, "Since it's a Crusader."
But neither Christopher nor David were as into leaping and swording in the way that Joseph is. So, tired of threatening punishing for pointing things at us and saying "I sword you!" we went to Big Lots this morning, and I found a cheapo castle set ($4.99!) with two knights, each with a couple of weapons.
And do you know what? The swording hasn't stopped, but now, of course, it's the two plastic knights swording each other and the birthday dinosaur, and the rest of us are spared. I think that's better.
Not that I understand, but...it's better.
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
Amy,
I have 2 sons, 5 and 7. They own no toy guns, watch very little tv (ours lives upstairs in the closet), etc. They have been totally sword/knight/pirate obsessed for YEARS. For All Saints Day, they have only chosen to dress up as St. George or St. Martin (since both carry swords). I thought all little boys were like this. I have a friend with an older boy who explained to me "We can't get rid of this obsession, so we try to channel it into protecting the innocent, and defending the good."
really -- they're not all this way??
Posted by: Martha at May 2, 2005 2:13:40 PM
Our boys (4 & 7) are both "weapon" obsessed despite our prohibiting toy guns and toy knives and our sensitivity to the television that they are allowed to watch. I'll never forget when, despite all of this carefulness, that the younger one took a bite out of the side of a saltine cracker, held it in his hand like a pistol, and said . . . "I bang you Nicky!!"
My husband and I looked at each other and said . . . "Where did that come from?"
Posted by: lw at May 2, 2005 2:21:33 PM
"Deus Vult", Amy.
Posted by: Patrick Sweeney at May 2, 2005 2:21:43 PM
Amy, you sound like me two years ago. Exactly. My 6 1/2 year-old son is still into swords and fighting and such and it's now gone to Star Wars with lasers.. ugh. I dread the release of the new movie.
I have learned to just ignore him when he's into "swording and gunning." Oh yeah, he will discover the power of the gun, whether it's a stick or a tinker toy or a finger. I found it was an attention-getting device AND it was, dare I say, "forbidden fruit." I have made it very clear that guns are NOT toys and I will never buy him one, similar to what my mother did. The more I ignore (and at times it was worse around me because he knew it bothered me the most) the less "into" swording and gunning and fighting he has become.
I also went the historical route: we have pirate sets, viking sets, army sets, roman soldier sets and Star Wars lego sets. He spent two hours on Saturday putting together an entire battle scene with all these sets. It was quite creative but, alas, a bit disturbing to his peace-mongering mother.
I pray he gets into West Point or the Air Force Academy...
Posted by: Brigid at May 2, 2005 2:21:47 PM
Dear Amy,
Ever since I first read on your blog, "I sword you!", I have loved it, and I remember you all and pray for your (and Joseph).
Have you considered signing him up for children's kendo, or maybe European fencing, when he gets to 6 years old? He might have a natural talent here, or he might decide that "I sword you!" is just too much work.
Posted by: Zhou De-Ming at May 2, 2005 2:23:07 PM
I, too, gave up trying to keep a son from finding weapons since everything--from toast to legos--was a new source. So I decided that he could have guns and swords but only those that didn't bear any resemblance to those he might encounter in reality. Knights or Star Wars only. It was a compromise, but sometimes compromises are the stuff of sanity.
Posted by: Woodeene at May 2, 2005 2:27:20 PM
At least it has some honor to it, the I sword you thing. Mine is inexplicably into MONSTER TRUCKS!!!!!!
Posted by: Ambrose at May 2, 2005 2:38:06 PM
When my son was small (birth to about five years old), we didn't own a TV. We homeschooled in Yellow Springs, OH, the home of Antioch College, perhaps one of the most politically correct places in the country. He would eat his sandwiches into the shape of guns and shoot his friends with them. He's now 14, and I just returned yesterday from parents' weekend at Culver Academy, where he is a member of the drill team, an exhibition rifle squad. After the exhibition, which included setting off cannons, he took me up to his room, where he demonstrated some of the trickier techniques with the 10 pound rifle he keeps in a corner. The best I could do was to plead, "Not near the window, sweetie!"
He's also a fencer. Zhou's suggestion above was great. Fencing is an honorable, elegant, and intellectually stimulating sport. It also gives weapon-obsessed young men a real respect for sharp objects.
Posted by: Leslie at May 2, 2005 3:02:28 PM
Oh Leslie....how funny. I have thought about marital arts or something....And the suggestion about channelling for good - defending the weak, etc..is good, too.
but right now we're working on "Not around the baby, please!"
Posted by: amy at May 2, 2005 3:05:16 PM
What's wrong with guns and swords?
I think parents should promote healthy views toward weapons rather than try to deny their existence. When they get old enough, put em through an NRA safety class for kids (Eddie Eagle says if you see a gun, Don't touch it, tell the nearest adult, etc).
But that Crusader idea is a really good one! I'll have to get that for my nephew, whose mother won't let him read Curious George or Each Peach Pear Plum because of the drinking, smoking, violence, yadda yadda yadda.
Posted by: Nguoi Dang Chay at May 2, 2005 3:06:41 PM
Definitely not near the baby. "Swording" the baby would be a very bad idea! Martial arts is a very good one, though. In addition to the aspects of it that appeal to kids, it also teaches respect of others and self-control. And children as young as Joseph are welcome to begin.
Posted by: Leslie at May 2, 2005 3:24:31 PM
Hey Amy, it looks like the "Hoffman" school in Fort Wayne has a kids program.
You could get your little swordster some training ("Don't sword your baby brother!"), and maybe a target to sword at home.
p.s. martial arts skills can be useful in married life. my wife has me punch through boards to make raw materials for her artworks--she paints on them. and i'm real good at breaking down boxes for the trash, or lifting heavy objects with good ergonomics.
Disclaimer: don't know nothing about the school, no financil interest; never even set foot in Indiana.
Posted by: Zhou De-Ming at May 2, 2005 3:30:44 PM
It's a small world, Zhou. The fellow who sits in the cube next to mine in my corporate life is the father of the owner of the Hoffmann school. They come from Quaker blood. :)
Posted by: Dan at May 2, 2005 3:35:43 PM
I have two sisters (no brothers) and gave birth to two daughters before my son (now five) was born. I had no frame of reference, as they say, for the "guy thing" with the weapons. Talk about a losing battle. Anything is fair game. All of the rolls of wrapping paper in the house have been trashed from swordplay.
I'll never let a toy AK-47 in the house, but we do have a Star Wars-style battery-operated light saber, which has been a huge hit, as is a collapsible type saber toy.
Posted by: Cheryl at May 2, 2005 3:37:54 PM
I don't know, but there's something about discouraging young boys from play fighting that makes me uncomfortable. I want young men to have a gallant desire to take off after the bad guys and protect what's good. I think it's part of what God wants men to do (figuratively, of course, when it's not appropriate for it to be literal). That doesn't translate into swordplay around the baby though, that's true.
George Will once wrote that if you give a young boy a rubber ducky, he will hold it upside down by the neck and yell "Bang, bang!" I think the man's right.
Posted by: Roz at May 2, 2005 3:44:31 PM
Each year there is a big medieval festival at the park in our neighborhood. It includes demonstrations of various weapons, as well as a big joust at the end of the day. The playgrounds in the neighborhood are rife with little boys fighting with their swords or sticks for weeks afterwords. What has saved us many a bruise is a constant stream of comment along the lines of, "Wow, they must have practiced a long time to learn how to NOT hurt each other!"
Julia A
Posted by: Julia A at May 2, 2005 3:52:42 PM
It's those un-PC Knights of Columbus with their swords. My now five year old asked when he was 3, where are the pirates? Ever since I joined (I'm only 3rd degree, 4th gets the hats,capes, and swords) my kids have been asking when I well get my sword and pirate hat.
My son has the lightsaber that turns from blue to red and makes authentic lightsaber noises.
Cooooooool!!!
Posted by: Tim F. at May 2, 2005 4:02:05 PM
We have 4 boys ranging in age from 9 1/2 to 3 1/2; swords and light sabers are a major fact of life in our house. One thing I have observed from the boys play is that they VERY rarely intentionally hurt each other with the toy swords, and when it does happen the boys sense of justice and fair play is deeply affronted. I watch them race into the "forest" (i.e., the maple stand at the back of the garden), dressed in all manner of capes, hockey equipment, toy armour, and they roar and shout and yell instructions at each other and I thank God for boys in all their boyishness. We also have a wonderful girl who holds her own in our very LOUD household. Two things: the boys love the BBC version of Prince Caspian on video, and they will sit through Shakespeare's Henry V (1990 Kenneth Brannagh) over and over again. The St. Crispian Day speech (before the battle of Agincourt) makes me weep every single time. Also, three of the boys have a deep love for chess. They take part in chess championships and as I watch all those guys play chess (a few girls, but not many), I think there is a connection between "swording" and the intricate battles which take place on the chess board.
Posted by: Anna Domini at May 2, 2005 4:05:31 PM
Click here to read a piece I wrote describing my take on the whole "boys and weapons" dilemma.
Posted by: Danielle at May 2, 2005 4:07:38 PM
We never allowed our three older sons to have toy weapons. They seemed okay with it, I guess, until we succumbed and purchased a gun and holster set for son #4 who insisted on using his fingers, crackers, anything he could make into a gun. When two of the older boys saw the play guns on CHristmas morning, their faces lit up and they grabbed them and had a shootout between the living and dining rooms. These guys were in their mid-teens, mind you.
Who knew they had been so deprived?
Posted by: Toni at May 2, 2005 4:17:49 PM
We never allowed our three older sons to have toy weapons. They seemed okay with it, I guess, until we succumbed and purchased a gun and holster set for son #4 who insisted on using his fingers, crackers, anything he could make into a gun. When two of the older boys saw the play guns on CHristmas morning, their faces lit up and they grabbed them and had a shootout between the living and dining rooms. Who knew they had been so deprived?
Posted by: Toni at May 2, 2005 4:18:33 PM
My favorite toy was the plastic M-16 my dad bought for me when I was a kid. My brother and I had the whole set: camos, helmets, boots, knives, pistols, and the M-16s. We had wars with the other boys in the neighborhood. My brother was a very good sniper. He could hide anywhere.
There is a reason why we had all these things. We came from several generations of U.S. Military (and Confederate) tradition. My dad is a retired Naval Captain. My brother became a Marine.
I think it is important for young boys to know about these things, however, I believe parents are the primary educators of their children and they should decide whether or not they should have plastic guns. Whatever you decide, of course, is appropiate.
Posted by: Father Ethan at May 2, 2005 4:19:57 PM
I think you all would enjoy Saki's The Toys of Peace I think. A very funny little short story on this exact topic.
"We must try," interrupted his sister; "you are coming down to us at Easter, and you always bring the boys some toys, so that will be an excellent opportunity for you to inaugurate the new experiment. Go about in the shops and buy any little toys and models that have special bearing on civilian life in its more peaceful aspects. Of course you must explain the toys to the children and interest them in the new idea. I regret to say that the 'Siege of Adrianople' toy, that their Aunt Susan sent them, didn't need any explanation; they knew all the uniforms and flags, and even the names of the respective commanders, and when I heard them one day using what seemed to be the most objectionable language they said it was Bulgarian words of command; of course it may have been, but at any rate I took the toy away from them. Now I shall expect your Easter gifts to give quite a new impulse and direction to the children's minds; Eric is not eleven yet, and Bertie is only nine-and-a-half, so they are really at a most impressionable age."
Posted by: Eileen R at May 2, 2005 4:31:44 PM
Those kids sound perfectly healthy to me. In fact, the ones I would worry about are the parents who are upset that their kids are not hewing to the politically correct party line.
Recall the movie SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON? Peter Pan?
What would be wrong if they grow up playing with make believe weapons? In what way does that lead them astray? In a world where Christians have for centuries had to resort to the sword, what then is the basis for those trying to pretend that the sword has no place in their lives. The kids are closer to reality, than their parents. It is REALLY the parents who are playing make believe, hoping that by "banishing" and "prohibiting" they are shielding their kids from a fallen world where violence obtains.
My grandchildren love Harry Potter. The oldest knew that Draco was bad, and whenever he appeared on the screen, he would say: "Draco Malfoy, you're not my friend!" And he would say it with a resolution that betrayed it came from his very soul. Now the boy is 6, and he loves to play computer games. Whenever he gets a new game, one of the first questions out of his mouth is: "Who are the good guys, who do we want to win?"
Already the boy is making a MORAL distinction, he doesn't know it of course. But he is already separating the wheat from the chaff, the saved from the damned.
An over concern with boys playing with weapons is part of the baggage of the '60s. Previous generations, who attended church far more than ours, and were not as morally clueless as ours, were not fixated on whether little kids were playing with weapons. Little Winston Churchill had a toy soldier set of over 5,000 strong. Complete with cannon, lancers, dragoons, hussars, infantry. This antagonism towards all things military, is ENTIRELY a modern fad. And like most modern fads, it ought to be jettisoned.
What would be wrong if the kid is fascinated with Knights, and later aspires to become a knight of the sky, a fighter pilot?
As our world embraces radical secularism, and opens the way for a reemergince of the neo-pagan, violence is going to become more prevailent. That's why scripture describes those times, where Christianity yields to apostasy, as days of "wars, and rumours of wars."
Posted by: Catherine at May 2, 2005 4:34:47 PM
Those kids sound perfectly healthy to me. In fact, the ones I would worry about are the parents who are upset that their kids are not hewing to the politically correct party line.
Recall the movie SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON? Peter Pan?
What would be wrong if they grow up playing with make believe weapons? In what way does that lead them astray? In a world where Christians have for centuries had to resort to the sword, what then is the basis for those trying to pretend that the sword has no place in their lives. The kids are closer to reality, than their parents. It is REALLY the parents who are playing make believe, hoping that by "banishing" and "prohibiting" they are shielding their kids from a fallen world where violence obtains.
My grandchildren love Harry Potter. The oldest knew that Draco was bad, and whenever he appeared on the screen, he would say: "Draco Malfoy, you're not my friend!" And he would say it with a resolution that betrayed it came from his very soul. Now the boy is 6, and he loves to play computer games. Whenever he gets a new game, one of the first questions out of his mouth is: "Who are the good guys, who do we want to win?"
Already the boy is making a MORAL distinction, he doesn't know it of course. But he is already separating the wheat from the chaff, the saved from the damned.
An over concern with boys playing with weapons is part of the baggage of the '60s. Previous generations, who attended church far more than ours, and were not as morally clueless as ours, were not fixated on whether little kids were playing with weapons. Little Winston Churchill had a toy soldier set of over 5,000 strong. Complete with cannon, lancers, dragoons, hussars, infantry. This antagonism towards all things military, is ENTIRELY a modern fad. And like most modern fads, it ought to be jettisoned.
What would be wrong if the kid is fascinated with Knights, and later aspires to become a knight of the sky, a fighter pilot?
As our world embraces radical secularism, and opens the way for a reemergince of the neo-pagan, violence is going to become more prevailent. That's why scripture describes those times, where Christianity yields to apostasy, as days of "wars, and rumours of wars."
Posted by: Catherine at May 2, 2005 4:35:09 PM
