I Just Decided

While on a long, brisk walk around our neighborhood Friday morning in an attempt to both burn calories and catch some rays simultaneously (never stop multitasking!!) I made a parenting decision - of sorts.



About half way through our walk, I first heard, then saw, some little boys (hoodies) playing around in their yard. Oh what wonderful parents! Having your children play outside instead of those violent, fat-ass and carpal tunnel inducing video games all the kids (and some dads!) are obsessed with! Not exactly!!

They were playing what looked to be a game of "run around and pretend to shoot my friends" with what I'm assuming (and hoping) were fake guns. Said guns, however, looked real enough to stop me in my tracks for a couple of seconds while deciding whether to run the other direction, or smile and quickly scamper past. I chose the latter, all the while keeping a close and judging eye on the boys.

I know it seems crazy to immediately think that maybe a child has found his dad's shotgun in the garage - the one that was supposed to be locked up and unloaded - but how many times do you hear about that crap on the news? A kid thinks they are playing an innocent game with their brothers and friends and someone ends up hurt or dead!? Why are toy companies making such realistic looking guns for children to play with? (And, like I said, I'm taking the liberty of assuming these were, in fact, toy guns!! Who knows!?)

Those who know me, both from this blog and personally, know that I am not overly sensitive to things like this ... but these were no fakey looking guns!! (aka: Nerf, Super-Soaker, etc...) They were long, brown and had moving parts!! It was a bit disturbing to say the least.

So, long-term-parenting-decision #1: No guns!! Squirt guns ... fine (especially when used to squirt neighbor's cat who poops and digs in garden), but very-real-looking, scare-the-neighbors-half-to-death guns... NO WAY!!