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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel incredibly sad when i see little boys in the playground weidling plastic machine guns

112 replies

lucyellensmum · 29/05/2008 08:55

This has always baffled me, even before i became a parent. What is it about human nature that has us wanting to play killing games at such a young age?? I mean, its not a new phenomenon is it - so now its gangsta and whatever it might be called, when i was young it was cowboys and indians. WTF?? Why do toy manufacturers still do this? There are CHILDREN being killed by guns in this country and it appears to be a major problem. I don't know if playing with guns naturally leads to this, i mean, im sure 99% of perfectly nice little boys play with guns and they don't grow up to be gangstas and murderers. But WHY do people think this is OK??

We constantly teach our children that it is NOT OK to hit and be spiteful. But then we say, ah, but its ok to pretend to kill each other?????

I don't have a boy, i have two girls so thankfully havent had to have grandparents etc buy them toy guns and army tanks, i would probably just give in and let them have them for an easy time, but it would make me uncomfortable. But am i being unreasonable, it is just human nature so natural play? ITs the same with play station, i do think that has a lot to answer for though.

OP posts:
unknownrebelbang · 29/05/2008 17:58

Been chortling about this thread as I've been out walking with DS2/3 this afternoon and they've picked up sticks and shooting each other.

They've never been bought guns, but have made plenty.

No surprise really though, when some of their nicknames include AK47, pistol, sniper, etc.

unknownrebelbang · 29/05/2008 17:59

oh yes, the palm crosses always get turned into swords.

GrapefruitMoon · 29/05/2008 18:03

southeast, i used to push a dolls pram filled with Matchbox and Corgi cars!

TsarChasm · 29/05/2008 18:08

I have the sweetest gentlest ds you could meet. He's 6. I've never given him a toy gun and grandperents/everonoe have respected my wishes too. Everything you say lucellensmum is how I feel about it too.

But if you watch boys play they do make it up if they don't have the toy. Even a stick or thier fingers 'bang bang you're dead' This is very sad but it's true .

Having said that I'm quite ok too and I played with toy guns. I think many of us probably did and the children (girls too) that do are not going to become gun toting idiots because of it. It is sad to see a toy symbol of such misery being played with by children though although they of course only see it from a cartoon perspective (hopefully)

Original poster
lucyellensmum · 29/05/2008 18:13

Martian, im not sure about the prams either - although i used to push my cats around in my pram, i only ever wanted a human baby

OP posts:
AbbeyA · 29/05/2008 18:17

It has to be inbuilt. I was a single parent, DS's father having died when he was a baby, so the influence was all mine. I didn't watch much TV and he only watched a limited amount of age appropriate programmes.My feeling were like OP and yet on getting his first Duplo he made a gun!

AbbeyA · 29/05/2008 18:21

He had no siblings, no older friends,the only children spent time with were a similar age.

Dozymare · 29/05/2008 18:30

Bfore having boys my views were the same - however as most posters of boys have said, boys will and do make guns from anything. I was never going to buy my boys guns but have now and they love playing cowboys and indians. They watch old spagetti westerns the same as all the males in my family, and all the males in DH's. In fact they even play with DH's old western playmobil and love it lots. We don't stop girls playing at Mummies with Dolls at the age of 4 in case it encourages them to be young mums at 16, so why the same censorship with boys and guns?? In fact, I am sure the proportion of teenage mums is probably higher than boys with guns, but who am I to say?!

Boys have the need for "agressive" tesosterone led play whether that is fighting, wrestling, making guns out of anything etc. I have never bought a replica gun, just the bog standard cap gun that you get with the cowboy sets.....

Incidentally, I loved my capgun as a child!!!

I still query whether or not I am doing the right thing, but I actually prefer the role play of cowboys and indians to the sometimes agressive "power ranger play" you see everywhere.......

LyraSilvertongue · 29/05/2008 20:58

I think there's a danger of glamourising guns by not letting boys have them, so it becomes some sort of forbidden fruit. Not that I think that will lead them to become a gun-toting gangster in later life either.

FluffyMummy123 · 29/05/2008 20:59

Message withdrawn

Original poster
lucyellensmum · 31/05/2008 22:48

I had to chuckle today, we were at MILs and she has mostly "boys toys", DD liked crashing the cars into each other and pretending they were arguing, but she pretended the gun was a saxophone

OP posts:
handlemecarefully · 31/05/2008 22:51

it's absolutely totally completely and utterly harmless imho

scottishmummy · 31/05/2008 23:06

LEM you are applying adult moral values and ethos to children's developmental play. you call it "killing games" a value laden judgmental label the children call it Paaaaahhhhh Paaaaaaahhh noise run around. girls also indulge in physical noisy play

actually no one said it was okay to kill each other, the application of the collective "we" is erroneous

children dont attribute sinister values to these items

neither should you

worley · 31/05/2008 23:11

ditto with twinkie1. i was going to have a no guns/fights etc but ds1 still made them up from sticks etc. and ds2 seems to just know how to make gun noises and fighting sounds and he isnt even 2 yet, (he hasnt copied ds1 as he is now out of the gun phase being 8 years older and prefers colouring and reading now!!

Original poster
lucyellensmum · 01/06/2008 10:18

I don't think i was being judgemental at all tbh. Just making the observation that despite the fact, and i do think you make an excellent point about putting adult behaviour ont children, it is only noisey dramatic play that of course they don't understand the implicaitons of (sorry that is a shit sentence). It just shows me that killing (or defense i suppose) is an innate aspect of human behaviour. But then, i probably shouldn't feel sad about that either - animals do the same, for food, territory etc.

OP posts:
yesmynameisigglepiggle · 01/06/2008 11:08

tempted to start an AIBU thread to counteract this one...hmmm, girls, prams, babys kitchen sink, chains

piratecat · 01/06/2008 11:24

my dd would love a plastic gun. Yet i have never bought her one as i thought it wasn't the right thing to do. ie --would i be encouraging bad play/ abusive gun weilding behaviour? I don't think so, it must just be me being to pc about it. yet my dd has pirate stuff, pirate figures with guns and swords, and power rangers who beat the crap out of other toys?
Yet I had guns when i was little, gun and holster cos i wanted to be a cowboy. Sis had a spacegun. We both had penknives.

We are ok tho!

3725Hayley · 01/06/2008 11:37

My DS 4 loves gun type play. You know light sabre's, power rangers zappers etc. It's just natural for boys and I don't see anything wrong with it.

My DH was the same as a child and he is a Financial Adviser now, not a hitman!

allytjd · 01/06/2008 13:02

I have three boys ranging between 4 and 9. I intended to discourage gun play but have long since given in (they have been known to nibble a cream cracker into the shape of a gun!). Saying that, i have banned taking guns to the school playground as i am from Dunblane and the association of guns and school is a bit off AFAIAMC.
The good thing about little boys' fascination with weapons and war is that it gives you a context for discussions about life and death, good and evil, justifiable force etc. My seven year old already knows more about the second world war than some teenagers these days.
Ever since they have had thier own pockeyt money they have bought swords and guns and thier friends who are not allowed guns always make a bee-line for them when they come round to play.

squilly · 02/06/2008 07:34

How many kids have toy guns and turn into mass murderers? Or go out and buy a real gun when they're in the teens?

If you let them have a pirate outfit, will they go out onto the 7 seas and maraude their lives away? I don't think so!

They're kids...they're playing....let them get on with it! And I agree with the poster who says that banning something only makes it more desirable.

Boys don't get bought toy guns anywhere near as much as they used to in my day, but gun crime figures are on the up. Are you seriously telling me there's a correlation between gun play and criminal/violent tendencies? I don't think so!

My dd's 7 and she has a number of 'weapons' that she likes to play with, guns, pirate swords, light sabres, etc. She wouldn't generally say boo to a goose, is compliant and wouldn't hurt a living creature (literally...gets upset at the thought of treading on ants!).

If you read, in years to come, that she's gone mad with an oozi and killed her loving parents, you have every right to say 'nuh, nuh...I told you so. Giving kids guns to play with is wrong'.

Somehow I suspect you won't have to.

Chandon · 02/06/2008 13:10

I never bought my boys guns.

I bought them a toy kitchen, and even a doll´s house....

They are 3 and 5 and will play at killing eachother anyway, they are nice boys, it seems to be just what boys do.

Don´t read too much into it.

I think Barbie´s for girls are more dangerous, but that´s another thread.

SniffyHock · 02/06/2008 13:17

"If you let them have a pirate outfit, will they go out onto the 7 seas and maraude their lives away? I don't think so!"
PMSL!!

It's actually quite hard to find toys guns as a friend of mine found out recently - I'm surprised to hear that you see boys in playgrounds with plastic machine guns.

We live on a farm and have a chap who comes and shoots the rabbits - DS has paid no attention so far (he's 4) but he will have to learn to respect guns one day and know not to touch them.

OrmIrian · 02/06/2008 13:20

My eldest son had a box of plastic weapons of various kinds - and poncey wooden ones fron English Heritage - inspite of pre-parenting misgivings about toy weapons. DS#2 also plays with them a little but not so much. And they are both loving little boys with plenty of mates. I don't think the one thing correlates to the other. DS#1 and DD used to join in the most amazing free-ranging games with all the other children in the street on the patch of waste ground at the end of our road - they built a little commnunity, some people were in charge of weapons, some in charge of building 'houses', some in charge of digging. The weapons thing was just part of the whole picture. Fascinating anthropological study - until the bastard council came and bulldozed it for housing

DrNortherner · 02/06/2008 13:22

Before I had my ds (now 6) I was firmly in teh no gun camp. Now we have an arsenal of weapons - guns, light sabres, bow and arrows, swords etc etc

It's what boys do but they seem to get such a bad press for it.

Let them play is what I say.

SoupDragon · 02/06/2008 13:25

I find it incredibly sad to see little girls playing with ironing boards and other such stuff.