to not want ds to be given this sort of toy?

[monkeybumsmum]

Just been to the equivalent of McDonalds over here (am in Belgium) and he had a 'Magic Box' which comes with a toy. Said 'toy' is a pretend dagger and thigh pouch, with instructions on how to put it on.

Maybe it's just me, but my ds is coming up to 4 years old, and I don't really want him to be playing with things like this! Quick thinking dh told him it was a garden tool so he can't wait to get home from school tomorrow to start digging the garden with it.

(I do have to say that we don't normally go to fast food places, we'd been out and it was on the way home )

So do you think I'm being a bit precious being a little cross about this? Think I've read so many AIBU threads now that I can't quite make up my mind!

Anyway I think I will have to go there tomorrow and investigate these toys

belgo

I think YAB a little U - I'm a nursery teacher, and if your little boy is anythingl ike any other boy I've obbserved, then he'll be role playing sword fights any moment now, either with the happy meal dagger or, if you've taken that off him, with a stick.

i've never bought a happy meal but isn't there always a film tie-in or something so you have some idea what to expect?

it was going to be crap, whatever it was.

It's a cultural thing as well though isn't it? Knives simply don't have the stigma on the continent that they do here and it's perfectly normal for kids to carry penknives and lock knives around.

Oh how things have changed

In some old work documents I found a copy of some minutes from a meeting of a preschool from the 1970s. There's a classic bit appealing for help from "...fathers to make some more wooden guns and swords as there aren't enough for all the boys to play with" and "more pretty petticoats are needed for the girls dressing up box".

Oh, how did us children of the 60s and 70s ever survive

Tidy Funny how our generation played with all those things and yet it's not our generation out there on the streets with the knives & guns!!

LittleOmar you are a spoilsport - those retracting knives are fun, we had them growing up and funnily enough I've managed not to actually kill anyone yet!

hogsback that's true - knives sold at petrol stations alonside the booze!

cheesefreak - yes i am a mean, mean mummy. i had a particularly fine rubber knife when i was little and i haven't killed anyone either

For heavens sakes... as kids we grew up with toy guns, pretend knives, playing war games, and not a single person I know has gone on to knife anyone in real life, or shoot them. Just like the vast majority of people in the civilised world.