in response to my own question.
Picture this:
It is Christmas Eve. We are sitting in church. It is dark and peaceful with the glow of candles providing the atmosphere. Our eyes are focused on the screen ahead as we follow a pictorial journey from Mary's pregnancy, to the angels and shepherds, the journey to Bethlehem, and ultimately the birth of Jesus, the Christ.
While the pictures are scrolling, "O Holy Night" is being played through the speakers. During the climax of the song, we are meditating on the picture of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in the stable. Chills are running down my spine as a tear runs down my cheek. Jacob is sitting next to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him pull out a short metal rod from his pocket that he had found earlier. Pointing it at the screen, he holds the rod up to his face, closes one eye and uses the other to squint through the imaginary target hole. Then he wraps his finger around the imaginary trigger and whispers sound effects like, "pechu...pechu" as he slightly raises the rod after each sound. When he is done, he blows the imaginary smoke of the tip of the rod and puts it back in his pocket.
There went the moment for me. I was disturbed and upset but said nothing...until we got home. When we got in the door and talked about the worship time I said how upset I was that Jacob shot baby Jesus.
He was quite offended and said, "I didn't shoot Jesus!"
"Jacob, I saw you." I replied.
"I didn't shoot Jesus, I was shooting the sheep!"
The point? Kids play with guns whether we give them to them or not and there is not a lot we can do about it! There is an aggressive thread in all of our being, especially boys. I used to be against toy guns and weapons but had a change of heart a few years ago. Now my kids have cap guns and all the rest and I really don't have a problem with it. We are just allowing our boys to be boys. We do have guidelines though, they are not allowed to aim any imaginary or toy gun at people and we talk frequently about killing and death, and the seriousness of it all.
Whether that is good or not, it works for us.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
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3 comments:
the best thing you can do is teach your kids what guns represent and keep the dialogue going on. i don't know about where you are living right now, but the gun violence here, especially with young adults, is just terrible. every weekend there was a young person killed at a club or bar and now it's increased to innocent people, being at the wrong place at the wrong time being shot. each one of us with children are responsible for educating our children about the dangers of guns, they will always be around and kid are always going to want to play with them. that's what i think.
Parenting is really hard and the reality of gun violence is very scary! Even though I have eased up a lot, when they want to play guns it still bothers me. Mostly because I don't understand where their knowledge comes from. We monitor every show, movie and video game and have sheltered them from a lot but still, somehow, they have learned.
We just recently allowed them to watch Star Wars, hmmm....
WE do talk about it...a lot. I just don;t know how much they understand!
yeah my mom was against me having toy guns until I found one at age four (it's was a silver six shooter) and I was so happy to find it she couldn't bear to take it from me.
- Peace
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