Cowboys & Indians

[chrispt]

I was having a chat with some other parents as their kids played cowboys and indians. It got us chatting about the real history of American. The upshot was that, maybe, allowing our children to play a game around the systematic genocide of a population wasn't the best way to teach acceptance.

I know kids don't see the game that way and we were sort of playing devils advocate, but there was a solid point at it's foundation.

You would never allow your children to play games based around SS & Jews, Hutu's & Tutsis, slavery or genocide in any other context, so why is it ok in this context. It was no less bloody or destructive.

Not that im going to stop kids having fun and i have very fond memories of shooting indians from the ridge or firing my bow and arrow at a wagon train.

I wonder if this is just hindsight and PC getting the better of me.

Whatcha reckon?

There is a big difference in context if you are talking about children in North America or children in Europe or elsewhere. After reading this thread I asked my 6 year old if he knew anything about cowboys and indians. He thought for a minute and the best he could come up with was that Woody in Toy Story is a cowboy and Indians are the nice people in the restaurant in town , but he didn't know how they went together. Then a while later he came back with "duh, I forgot, its a chasing game"

Its not like they are pretending to go around decimating races or anything.

It's very interesting.

I know the nasty bits aren't part of the game which is why it is just a chasing game and i wouldn't really stop kids playing it. But it's what it's derived from that got us thinking.

Would you allow your children to play chase games to be based around any other historical examples of ethnic cleansing?

It's amazing that it is socially acceptable in this instance.

When I was a student, the children in the street where I lived played "Japs & Jerrys" - they were unclear who either "Japs" or "Jerrys" were, and I wasn't sure which side was meant to be the goodies. It certainly didn't seem to reflect any actual knowledge or understanding of WWII which I assume it was vaguely based on. We played "Japs & Commandos" as much as "Cowboys and Indians" when I was a kid, and had equally little understanding of the rights and wrongs in either case.

I think if you live in an area where Indian / First Nation / Native American issues are a recent memory (or still causing pain) then of course you should stop your children calling their chasing game "Cowboys and Indians" out of basic politeness. But its really just a game to most children, whatever they call it is meaningless.

Do kids still play cowboys and indians? That seems awfully low tech.. I thought they'd play CSI or somethign like that.. hmmmm

I My DS2 and DNs play it

You cannot say it's meaningless MuminScotland...evn if the kids in your street did notundestand what the game meant...someone should have enlightened them.

Lest we forget" is often put on war memorials for that reason.

Same goes for people who were persecuted by settlers in their lands.

It's not a game based on ethnic cleansing it's a game based on two sides fighting. A game based on ethnic cleansing would be one where half the kids show up and the other half relocate to a remote part of the playground.

"Ring-a-ring-a-roses" is a singing game based on The Plague. "Blind Man's Bluff" is all about disability. "Pinning the Tail On the Donkey"... animal abuse? Whacking a pinata demonstrates that violently hitting stuff brings rewards. I think you can overthink stuff.

What the game means is "chase each other and jump out from gateways, and point sticks at each other while shouting BANG"

I agree that we should explain to children what the terms mean, and why they matter, in the same way that we should explain to them that guns are nasty and being dead is a bad thing. But I don't think that small children picking up these things from slightly older children has any real connection in their own minds with "being nice to people who are different from you" which is a lesson they are taught by any decent parent and/or nursery.

I spent large parts of my childhood killing Japs, Commandos, Cowboys and Indians indiscriminately, and I don't think it harmed my development into a nice woolly-minded liberal.

My dd was desperate for a cowboy costume. So I got her one as a treat for her good school report. When she was chasing an Indian the dog up and down the apartment screaming and shooting noisily with both of her toy pistols (the outfit came with two guns) I thought "WHAT am I doing??? If she was a boy I wouldn't have allowed this in a million billion years!!!"

Chilli...the games you mention are based on acts of nature....ie disease or disability..no comparison...

A MuminScotland can you stop using that term for Japanse people? Twice now..its very offensive.

I'm not using that term for Japanese people -I am telling you the name of a game I played in the early 1970s. It did not at the time or since have any connection to anything I may have thought, said, felt or done in connection with Japanese people.
The sides could just as easily have been "Purples" and "Oranges". I had no more idea that the term "Jap" was used offensively for Japanese people than I did about who or what a "Commando" was, or whether "Cowboys" or "Indians" existed outside the films that came on TV on a Saturday morning.

My point is that the labels that small children use in this game have no connection in their minds with any real people, living or dead, or any real situations, however much the labels may sound like those people and situations.

Perhaps out of politeness I should have put it in quotes each time to show how I meant it, sorry for any offense caused.

I don't see why a game based around a disease or disability is any less offensive than a game based on war or genocide.

but you are applying adult logic to childish games. You have to seperate the two.

No Buzz...you don't have to seperate the two...and respect for the dead has nothing to do with logic.

AMum...if I sat here and said "Oh my children always sing that song about "eenie meenie minie mo catch a N*er by the toe"

But they don't mean anything by it because they don't know what one is...that would not be accpetable...nor is it ok to say the term you used in a lighthearted way...child or adult.

good point. But just as that has gone, so is cowboys and indians, its disappearing. I'm not really disagreeing with you, more that I find something uncomfortable about assigning adult perception to childrens games. It just seems, somehow, wrong. Not sure why though

i think it can keep history alive too, or do we just forget it? i have playmobil cowboys and indians. learnt tons from it (cooking utensils etc) not just fighting

Playmobil are notorious for their creative bizarre figures though..."alcoholic tramp" being the most I ever saw.

As for Buzz's thoughts on assigning adult perception to childrens games...we HAVE to do that...it's how we teach morals...many Mothers wont allow guns for their kids...

I think it depends a lot on where and when you were raised. Here in Canada, the last residential school only closed in 1987! Can you imagine if someone swooped in today, took your children, didn't tell you where they were going, beat your child into learning a new language and religion, and then "resettled" your kids where you would never see them again? That happened here, for decades, and it is still very fresh. Entire generations are still sufferening from the effects of this. That is why we teach our kids not to "play" those games. It has nothing to do with being a wet blanket, or overthinking it, or being too pc. It is about hoping our kids never grow into the kind of adults who think it is ok to do that. It is about not normalizing the behavior. Playing good guys vs bad guys is fine, it is a ton of fun, but it doesn't need to have ethnicity or religon assigned to it.

It's still very fresh in Australia too ontariomama...I do think it's important for people in the UK and other countries to see it from both sides.