We have a rule at our house. The rule is ‘no guns’. We own no toy guns despite having three boys that are as rowdy and aggressive as ever a man-child was. We have this rule because I don’t want them pretending to kill each other. That’s not a game.
Perhaps I am being too serious about it. Perhaps. It’s my house though. It’s my rule.
My children say, “What about hunting?”
If you believe in reincarnation then believe my children were trial lawyers in a previous life. If you don’t, then understand that my children are like all others in Western Civilization. They like to argue, so they ask about hunting.
“That’s true,” I say. “If you want to pretend to hunt with rifles and shotguns, you could. Do you want to play with toy rifles or toy pistols?”
I explain that pistols are hand guns.
They say, “We want toy pistols.”
I say, “I know.”
Now it’s October and it’s time for another hard decision. Halloween has been heavily marketed, like most holidays, toward kids. Each year my wife and I have grown more uncomfortable with the grisly displays that captivate and creep out our children when we go to the store. Skeletons, zombies and ghosts lurk in every Wal-Mart. Horrific movie posters decorate the windows of video stores.
I know that my kids don’t have to dress up like monsters and murderers. They could wear any number of innocent costumes. It would still be Halloween. It is the season for haunted houses and horror movies. These things belong. We do not.
I don’t know when vampires and witches became the good guys. I do know I have to draw the line somewhere. I’d rather not eat a brownie at all than eat a turd by mistake if there’s a chance of a mix up. I think in this case, there is a chance.
Maybe I’m sheltering them. In fact, I know I am. It’s my job. If I’m wrong, they can have all the Halloween fun they want when they grow up and leave home. They will be little the worse for wear, I think. We can play dress up any day of the week and candy is always in season. I see no reason to observe a holiday that is the traditional night of the deathly, the macabre and the nightmarish. Rather, I will take a pass. Let it be another day on the calendar like Bastille Day or Yom Kippur.
"Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good."
John the Beloved in a letter to his friend, Gaius ~ A.D. 90
I wish there was a "like" button. There are many different views on whether or not we should shelter our kids. The definition I found of shelter is this, "a structure that provides privacy and protection from danger; protection: the condition of being protected". Isn't that what good parents do? I would rather be accused of sheltering my children than to know I am leaving them unprotected in a dark world. -TM
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