Whoops...

[moominmuppet]

I laid down to take a little nap about 7:30pm. And woke up at 2:30am. Oops. Should go back to bed; I have to be up in about three hours to go escort.

In the process of unpacking the games I ran across two plastic toy scimitars that used to decorate my wall (I think they also used to make *crash* noises when you banged them together, but apparently not anymore). It got me idly wondering about why I don't like having toy guns around, but toy swords don't elicit the same reaction. I wonder if I lived in a society where swords were actually regularly used as weapons, would I feel differently? Would I feel differently about toy guns if I lived in a society where real guns weren't a hot-topic issue?

Comments

Re: Toy guns vs toy swords:

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

Oh, fascinating, thanks! That managed to articulate a lot that feels pretty accurate to why I think of them differently.

Re: Toy guns vs toy swords:

[bec76.livejournal.com]

That's a great piece. It certainly strikes a lot of the myths about non-violent parenting. I think that swordplay is a much less aggressive way of combat play. Plus, like the article said, swords denote a certain level of ethics in play, i.e. feeling "heroic" or "knightly." Those are excellent qualities to foster in all children. Thanks Rowan!