The play of the innocent
Neither myself nor Melissa would ever prohibit Jake (our two years and seven months old son) from playing with toy guns, toy soldiers or other military toys, but neither are we in any rush to introduce such things to his world. At the moment he is perfectly happy playing with fire engines, helicopters, Brio trains, Lego bricks, jigsaw puzzles, finger and brush paint, and all the other things that materially privileged young children play with. He’s fascinated with soldiers, but mainly because (in his world) they play bugles, wear identical clothes, and march up and down in synchronized fashion.
Last weekend we took him to the birthday party of a (just turned) three year old friend of his where he found a toy gun made of transluscent plastic. He thought it was a space rocket and spent a blissful ten minutes or so doing 5,4,3,2,1 countdowns before blasting it into orbit.
Today we were at St Katherine’s Dock on the Thames. At the entrance to the dock is a 36 (38?) pounder canon from an early 18th Century French warship. Somewhat bizzarely, Jake thought it was a camera (he declared as much) and greatly amused his mum, dad and grandma by looking along the length of the gun while saying “cheese!” (He has no idea that there is a camera manufacturer called Canon, I can assure you).
I may not be a plant-munching pacifist, but indoctrinating children into fantasizing about death and destruction does not sit comfortably with me. Jake will learn about guns and war soon enough, and such knowledge will probably come from television, the movies or even Disney.
Sigh.
Tags: family