I expected that this day will come.
The day that K finally embraces his gender stereotype and play with toy guns. I am really not surprised, since infancy, he has always been given to wear gender specific colours like blue, sleeps in a room with blue bedding and been provided with toy vehicles, tools and sports equipment. Well, at least he still plays alot with his cooking set, cash register and household cleaning set.
When he turned two, he became rather fascinated with swords and kept asking me to buy him one during our trips to the toy store, and did not stop asking for it until I finally got him two foam swords. After that, we spent some of K's play-time being swashbuckling swordsmen and playing dead.
I suppose I made the mistake of subscribing to the kids channel on cable when he was about 1 year old. It was through cartoon network that he discovered the concept of super-hero about 6 months back and lost all interest in Mickey Mouse thereafter. It did not help that his dad got quite fascinated by Ben-10 as well, and purchased the whole series of the cartoon online for him. I made sure that I was the wet blanket and reminded K, "You know Ben-10 is not real right, He is a cartoon and it is all pretend."
The fascination with toy guns started from the beginning of this year when we visited an extended family member's house, and he was exposed to my cousin's collection of Nerf toy guns. This interest is also further exacerbated by his dad who spends alot of his time at home with PS2 RPG games.
It was last week when he had to be dragged out of a shop bawling, as I refused to buy the toy gun that he badly wanted. Dh then exclaimed that he has to be the one that buy K his first toy gun, which he did earlier this week. Our experience at the toy store and K's introduction to toy 'gun-play' was almost akin to a modern rite of passage, as from a toddler to a preschooler.
I am definitely concerned about the influence of violence through this toy. However, putting a stop to it is not an answer, when dh totally approves of it. I try to manage his child angst to healthier levels but setting rules in 'gun-play'; no shooting people or animals, no shooting furniture or things in the house. So he is limited to aiming his gun at walls, toy figurines and matchbox cars.
Look on the bright side. He just might follow his father's and uncle's footsteps and become a marksman when he goes to NS. I used to think that super-hero/warrior play don't start till they are about 5 years of age. Just as well let him get it out of his system, maybe by the time he turns 5 years old, he will be into microscopes and board games?
Anyhow, I already told dh that he has to handle it all, if we ever get any complaints from school which concerns any of K's potential aggressive tendencies. In the meantime, we are still doing lots of pretend-play with his cooking set and cash register.
