LizaWasHere

The original Pppptoo-ers post generated some of the most interesting discussion on the blog of late, so I thought I should follow up. Also, Noah continues to be interesting on the subject.

Last night, Noah succcessfully earned back access to his Bristle Blocks (now “Krinkles”). The first thing he made was a vaguely gun-shaped Pppptoo-er, for This Mommy.

Then he built a stack of wheels, and told me it was a “Sandwich Pppptoo-er. It pppptoos out sandwiches for you to eat! Eat this ketchup one, That Mommy!”  Noah then pppptooed me 3 peanut butter sandwiches and some mustard. Something tells me I’m going to remain the cook here for a loooong time.

“Noah, do pppptooers hurt people?”

“No…they pppptoo things at you and you might fall down.”

“What are pppptooers for?”

“Pppptooing.”

A few minutes later, while coloring with markers, Noah explained to me that he was drawing a “weapon” which was a special kind of pppptooer. It was yellow, and it pppptooed circles.

This morning, Noah made a picture of a bubble pppptooer out of bubble stickers that the Easter Bunny gave him. “When you get a bubble pppptooed at you, you have to jump over it!”

So, I think there are a few concepts going on here for Noah.

When you hear the classic video game/movie “pppptoo pppptoo” sound, it comes from an object. You and I might call it a gun or a weapon, or maybe a laser. Noah doesn’t see them exactly the same way, although he may be starting to get that they are related objects.

In Noah’s world, pppptooers emanate something: bubbles, sandwiches, sounds, circles, things that might make you fall down. But they don’t seem to hurt people.

This makes me not quite ready to think of them as “toy guns” although they are probably moving in that direction.

I have a mix of feelings and opinions about the issue of toy guns, and clearer views about real guns.

Let’s tackle the easier question first: I would prefer that Noah not play in a house where there are real guns. I definitely don’t want him playing somewhere with real guns that are not locked up. I’ve read too many stories about children — mostly boys — who accidentally shoot their friends because they had no idea it was a loaded, real, gun.

When Noah gets older, if he wants to learn how to shoot in a safe, controlled environment, ie riflery at summer camp or a similar well-supervised and out-of-the-house appropriate location, I’m ok with that. I think that him knowing that guns are not toys and must be handled carefully and with respect is extremely important.

Toy guns are a more gray area.

I think a flat out ban is ineffective, much the way Covert, Reno, and other commenters observed. I think it led me to lie about having the squirt gun, not to have no interest in squirt guns.

(And by the way, my first with-a-paycheck job was for the Milwaukee Gun Club, a recreational skeet shooting establishment. I never touched a gun while I was there, but I sold ammo, cokes, and beer, and worked as a trap setter and puller. I tell this to illustrate that it also apparently didn’t drive me away from guns or “gun people.” Whatever that means.)

I think that most people, including children, are capable of making the same distinction that Noah is already making: fantasy vs reality.

Pppptooers and the myriad of toy objects that emanate things are distinguishable from guns, even if they are shaped like guns and we call them guns. Video games where the object is to shoot something or someone also use pppptooers, even if the pppptooer creates exploding things/dying things results.

As Noah gets older and starts to understand what he is “really” pretending when he plays with pppptooers, and most likely stops calling them pppptooers, I think it is important for us to be talking with him about the risks and dangers real guns present.

I expect that the mix of literature on violent video games will get some intense review as Noah gets older. Damned if I’m going to let my kid unthinkingly play a game where they get points for sleeping with a prostitute and then ripping her off or killing her — looking at you, Grand Theft Auto. But I don’t want to give those games the allure of the forbidden, either. There may be age limits, time limits, location requirements (the living room where your Moms can interrupt or worse yet play along, springs to mind), and forced tedius and embarrassing conversations with your mother before certain lines can be crossed.

And I also think that commenters Eric and Richard make excellent points — there are a lot of critically important issues that create the environment for many of the risks that guns then tip into crisis.

Jen, I think that ties into your excellent points, too. Modeling AND talking about the whole pantheon of our values is important — critical, in fact — for what we try to teach him about guns and pppptooers to make sense and to help him grow up into the kind of man we hope he will become.

So far, we haven’t tried to talk a lot about alcohol, except that when one of us has a beer or glass of wine with dinner, we tell him that they aren’t drinks for kids. We’ve let him sniff the drinks, to which he universally responds with “eeeeeeeuuuuuwwwww! YUCK!” We’ll cross the line for discussing responsible drinking when we first see a tipsy or drunk person that he might notice.

Same with cruelty, only that’s already more hands-on. We don’t allow Noah to hit or kick or otherwise hurt other people. We haven’t quite sorted out how to handle him pretending to hurt himself to get our attention — I lean towards ignoring/downplaying, Jill leans towards intervening/stopping.  We model and discuss how to be gentle with Josie, where he an and can’t touch her, like not putting his fingers in her mouth, but allowing him to tickle her belly, for example.

Like Tammom said in her comments, what it comes down to is giving Noah and Josie the best tools and training we can to help them learn how to make good decisions.

Only time will tell if we’ve done a good job.

(On a sort of related note, have you seen all the articles that the US is in a dire ammo shortage, because since November 5, the second amendment fundamentalists have been buying guns and ammo at such an insane rate that police and sheriff’s departments can’t get what they need???

Does anyone else find it scary to hear that the radical fringe right wing is stockpiling weapons??? On the other hand, maybe the way to keep Noah from playing with guns is to tell him he has to pay for them himself.)