It’s hard to know what’s normal sometimes. As an unfortunate son of empire, my life, my own memories as a child, were corrupted at a young age. As such, knowing what should be acceptable behavior while raising my own kids can be challenging.
Yesterday, my 4 year old son was playing with another young boy at his house, while in another room speaking with their father, I could see in the distance the two boys flying some type of fighter jet while bombing a lego city and train station.
At first glance, this is normal right? I mean we all played with GI-Joe’s, green army men, and jet fighters when we were kids.
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But at the same time, my indoctrination as a child did result in my having to go through years of re-education, a multi-year awakening period that I still consider myself in. Where I attempt to let go of my previous politics and core beliefs, in order to become a sovereign man, thinking on my own, and not allowing the powers that be to influence my decisions and beliefs.
As a father now, I certainly would like to help my children not have to go through a phase like this in their own lives. I’d rather teach them to be independent, respectful people who think for themselves from the get go.
Bombing cities for playtime…this is not something I taught them and is definitely not something natural. No child sees a plane and instinctively takes it upon themselves to drop bombs on the other toys. Behavior like this is learned probably from watching T.V., perhaps the neighbor boy, or maybe he got a glimpse of the news while at someone else’s house. Or even a stroll down a toy store aisle could have led to him seeing all sorts of advertisements for toys that bring about death and destruction.
The problem with this type of play is that we learn a lot when we are having fun, anything we are passionate about makes learning easy.
I know by playing monopoly when I was young, I quickly understood how real estate worked, and as a child during the Persian Gulf War, I clearly remember everyone on my street playing with military jets, myself included. This type of play is likely where my love for real estate and country first originated.
A discussion with my son was a good start to helping him think for himself, rather than me tell him what is right and wrong, I do my best to help him work through it on his own with conversation.
Ultimately, I was okay with the bad guys bombing a city and the good guys defending it. However, I did offer up some other games that the kids might enjoy, and I always make it a point to encourage them to not have their toys fight, but instead they should team up together to go explore.
– The Dissident Dad
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Give me a break! ALL children, before the whiney crybabies started pushing for population reduction, played army! How many of those children are in prison today because the “bombed” a lego building? I will say this, I can almost guaranty that there are more mentally disturbed youth today from a lack of things to do than there ever was back in the day, furthermore when we give our children extremely potent drugs to kill the child in them what does society expect? I just read an article the other day that promised children will be getting even stronger opium based drugs to suppress their childhood ambition to play! Lets just give them all laptops and free access to all porn and mind killing video games and see what they do after that!
Sound and sensitive article. Not one I’d suggest a chill pill for…
I agree, even though I understand playing war games is as old as Humanity (more or less, there are cultures, in Amazonia, in Mongolia etc who though regarded as primitive are much more evolved then us there for peaceful), it is not far fetched but well concerned to want to inspire something else. Like video games that are not about destruction…but love? (yes, I’m a dreamer…but…), like..meditation?…anyways, as more awaken to the psychological manipulative violence we live in ideas such as this will become natural ; we are loving beings not innate fighters. the more we awaken fearless we become. there is much to be hopeful about in spite of the apparent chaos.
There is play and then there is play. Children simply mimic what they see adults do – it is adults who both “manufacture and manage” the next generation of mind slaves. Violence is bound in the heart of a child and will find its expression, it will seep to the surface – what is the real issue is what is on the surface to hide it or confront it? If our conscience becomes activated such that we reject violence as being in any way the way of Peace, and instead see it as the path of the prodigal waistral, we may indeed feel the desire to return home and become like our heavenly Father instead of just a re-run of our earthly father, of whose sins the sins are visited…generation after generation…to wit, the “generation” of the fig tree, but I won’t go down that track today, wisdom is too high for a fool and I would not want to stumble anyone…
An ancient truth is that the tree is always know of and by its fruit, and if it is fruitless, then how fruitless is it? I guess it is just standing wood, man, ready for the fire…
Boys of every civilization use the tools available in the quest to be protectors. Geez Louise. Girls most usually mimic the womanly art of breastfeeding or changing diapers. I gave my sons a doll when they were three so they were “the dad”if they wanted to, which they did for a little while. They often dropped the baby on the floor when something more interesting came along and I had the opportunity to instruct on proper care of babies. My girls enjoyed shooting guns as well, with sticks as I didn’t buy toy guns, and everyone loved riding a bike.
This obsession with demonizing guns is counter to the development a natural and healthy sense of safety from harm. There are bad people in the world and we have a right to defend ourselves from them. What is necessary to teach children about is “emotions” and self control; rules for communicating in productive ways and how to recognize and respond to verbal abuse. My kids used to complain because I limited the tv to almost nothing and provided crafts and a yard to play in. They learned how to do all aspects of housekeeping because I told them if I died they should know how to make their beds and scramble eggs. There was no threat of my death – it is a part of life and a possibility for any family. What would be nice would be a culture that respected families who didn’t outsource motherhood; a culture that really did protect the children.
Thanks for the comment, Kate. I would say you misunderstood the article partly. Both Dan and I are supporters of gun rights. There was no anti-firearm rhetoric in the post. He was highlighting children mimicking state violence, i.e., jets dropping bombs on buildings.
supporter of gun rights?
what are guns for?
this is as far as we can see the evolution of our world?
I fail to follow the logic of all the statements on this blog now.
before kids were mimicking dropping lego bombs, they were mimicking cow boys killing Indians.
Guns Cowboys & Indians
Guns are for protecting yourself against someone ( or several someones) you are not capable enough to defend against with just your hands. We are not all physically equal. Just because the MSM doesn’t report on it, the are probably many instances each day where a smaller, weaker or aged person uses a gun to protect themselves or their loved ones.
Guns are also for hunting & sport ( think of it as noisy golf.)
Cowboys vs Indians was what we played because that’s what we saw on TV or read about. We also played ‘army men’ (see, it wasn’t just picking on non-Europeans.)
Peace
At first glance, this is normal right?
At first glance, this is normal. At second, third, and fourth glances, also normal. You are teaching your son to be fearful during fantasy play that he’s losing the approval of his father. Of course you don’t want him to grow up a sociopath, or worse yet, a politician, but teaching him to repress his fantasies rather than expressing them in play is not helpful.
I think the question here is whether or not young children bombing play cities with play fighter planes is normal or taught/influenced societal behavior. Certainly some sort of competitive, fighting behavior is likely part of the natural human condition, but I think it is legitimate to question whether young kids using army planes to bomb cities is really healthy behavior, although clearly it is encouraged in our American culture.