I kept hearing the same things out of other mother's mouths all weekend long:
"I'm having a hard time buying another violent video game/gun toy for my son this Christmas."
The biggest battle most of us with boy children face is raising them in a world saturated with violence. Turn on a football game and every other commercial is for a video game rated "M" for violence. Every movie geared toward them is based on violence. Films rated PG-13 lure in boys far too young to be interested by making Happy Meal toys and action figures, it's not remotely shocking that most 8-year-olds have seen Transformers, Spider-Man and Batman--films NOT rated for general audiences. But it should be, shouldn't it?
Yet most parents haven't bothered to question it. Including me.
Every boy I know wants Call of Duty and an Airsoft gun. Including the boys that live under my roof.
I've drawn a line in the sand on the video games. We deliberately got a Wii because most of the games for that system aren't as violent. I've refused to download certain apps on Mr. T's ipod because they cross that line. No shooting at people. Zombies? Yes. Aliens? Yes. Space ships? Yes. But no shooting at people.
I'm that mom, but he insists all his friends are playing the games rated "M." Tough cookies, kid. And then I let them pelt each other with Nerf bullets and really wouldn't bat an eye at paintball. Is that hypocritical? I'm toeing the line of keeping them sensitized but realizing their proclivity for making every toy into a gun. I try to limit the images locked into their brains when they play games and watch TV, I try to steer them towards the building toys and sports, but they live in a culture where shooting is the most advertised and beloved pastime.
I've accepted hunting and guns in my household, but the boys have to pass Hunters' Safety before they get their own firearm. We believe firearms belong locked in a gun safe. Not displayed in a cabinet, not tossed in a corner of the garage. Firearms get put away unloaded. Period. The privilege of hunting comes with proof that you're responsible to handle it. Those guns are not automatic or semiautomatic, they shoot one bullet at a time for sport and food. No one living at my house believes anything else is sensible or necessary in any situation.
And I look again at my sons' wish list this Christmas: Call of Duty, Airsoft machine gun, football jersey and I think of what the other moms have been saying to me all weekend...
"I'm having a hard time buying another violent video game/gun toy for my son this Christmas."
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