Published in the Globe and Mail, Facts and Arguments Essay, Nov 16, 2009
As I sit at my kitchen table, a war is raging above me. I hear screams and shouts, shots ringing out, and the crashing of debris – no doubt collateral damage.
I do not live in the West Bank or Chechnya, but in relatively peaceful Toronto. Still, there has been a war going on upstairs in my house for close to forty-five minutes.
All the soldiers fighting in this war seem content to keep battling. I hear no suggestions being made for a ceasefire or peace talks. No one has even come crying down the stairs to find me, requiring a kiss to mend their wounds. No, the soldiers upstairs are tough, and happy to keep on fighting until someone gets bored or grossly injured.
Perhaps this is what naturally happens when four little boys, ranging in age from three to five, get together to play.
For those of you out there who think I am a bad parent for allowing my children to play with toy guns, let me be clear – there are no toy guns in my house. Okay, okay. We have two small, orange and green plastic water guns covered in Lightning McQueen stickers, but other than that, no guns.
We do, however, have sticks, markers, plastic hammers, and yes, thumbs and fingers. My five-year-old even made himself a gun out of mega-blocks, but it is actually big enough to be considered an anti-aircraft weapon.
Almost every day, one or both of my sons will approach me and ask in their sweet baby voices, “Mommy, do you know where my gun is?”
I invariably reply that I do not and that I hope they are not shooting at anybody who doesn’t want to be shot at.
“No, no,” they reply. “We’re shooting the bad guys.” Sometimes they are shooting bears, and I have suggested a few times that maybe they should simply tranquilize the bears and then conduct research to make sure the species is still thriving. They like to practice saying, “tranquilize,” but apparently simply shooting the bears is still more fun.
I have wondered where the love of guns and shooting comes from. Neither I nor my husband has ever gone hunting, but it does not stop my five-year-old from announcing to his kindergarten teacher every once in a while that, “Today is hunting day!” Yes, he has one of those checked red and black coats – the Kenora dinner jacket – that hunters seem to wear, and he went through a period where he loved The Fox and the Hound. Perhaps that is enough.
Yesterday, at our local park, my sons built an entire war setting in the sandbox. They used little pieces of sticks as soldiers. “Bang, bang,” they shouted at each other, for about thirty minutes. I don’t think a winner had been declared when I finally dragged them home. Perhaps having a much-loved uncle in the armed forces is enough to bring on this passion for war.
Now that my sons have discovered transformers and the million-years’ battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons, I foresee this love of guns and play killing lasting a long time.
People have told me it is natural for little boys to love playing with guns and acting out wars. They insist my boys will not grow up to be warmongering ruffians. Play fighting is how children learn to figure out right from wrong, and I should be grateful that at least they usually pretend to kill the bad guys and not the good ones.
Still, with shrieks of, “Quick! Shoot them!” and “Bang, bang! You’re dead!” piercing my ears, I find myself thinking, no wonder there are so many wars going on in our world. No wonder there are so many weapons continually being made, traded, bought, and sold. No wonder there is no really meaningful push to end some of the military conflicts that have been going on for so many years.
I don’t consider myself a cynic, but I do think that this excitement for fighting is an inherent part of humanity, and that “peace on earth” is just a concept, unattainable in reality.
Still, I hope that by trying to make my sons find empathy with the other side, any wars – great or small – that they might get involved in will be short-lived and without too many dire consequences.
Atticus Finch said something about having to walk around in another person’s skin to understand their motives and actions. I have attempted to have a discussion with my sons about how they know whether someone is good or bad and the concepts of perspective and point of view, but three and five is a bit young to understand ideas that millions of adults can’t seem to grasp.
Still, I will continue to try to explain these concepts to my sons, and when they are old enough or when it matters enough to them, I hope they will understand.
Until then, I will live with “Bang, bang! You’re dead!” and be grateful that I live in a country and a neighbourhood where I can be worried about my sons playing war, and not actually fighting in one.