slingshot boy is cool.
the young boys with the array of plastic guns is a bit disturbing*
* to a non north american at least
the young boys with the array of plastic guns is a bit disturbing*
* to a non north american at least
None of those friends and family own guns (or swords, heh) as adults. I've never even fired a pistol in real life. We all skew fairly left and would favor a lot more gun control. I'm a supporter of the military and our troops, but I worry about us sending them all over the place for who knows what end. It takes a heavy toll on us and them.
I honestly don't think having weapons as toys has much affect on you as an adult. It's all fun and games until you're old enough to learn some history and actually comprehend the horrors of war, and then you can only look back fondly on those innocent days.
Stick with right-angle found on the ground? Gun.
Inverted shoe? Gun.
Magnetic letter L? Gun.
Legos? Gun. Sometimes sword.
Sister's barbie held by arms with legs poiting at target? Gun.
Toast with bite out of it? Gun.
Weapons are basic, ancient tools. In fact, the oldest human artifacts ever found were weapons[0]. It should come as no surprise that they are popular children's toys, whether we like it or not.
To be clear -- I do not mind it, but the guns depicted here are realistic enough to potentially cause confusion for people with actual guns and should probably never be taken out of the house......
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schöningen_spears#targetText=T....
In India, it is somewhat common for kids to have toy guns which make a loud sound if you insert a 'cap' and pull the trigger. This is sold as a firework, and can be seen everywhere on the streets during festivals.
My mom hid all signs of guns (ads for outdoor/hunting etc).
We didn't have a TV then.
Still we somehow realized that guns were super exciting.
My father took it from there and taught us to be safe with guns, that war was cruel and not in any way cool but sometimes sadly necessary.
I still cringe when I see inexperienced people with guns :-/
Guns, swords, chase, hunt are all major staples of boy play. It's primal, gendered, cross cultural and immediately obvious.
No kid is being raised in isolation of their culture. I'd assume there would be strong correlation to being exposed to movies and TV with people using guns to you gun purchases/affinity.
For boys is ofter guns or superheros, for girls is a doll as long as is clear that it represents an alpha female. Girls and boys earn social power by beging linked with "powerful people" and toys simbolize this association.
I know the guns topic is a sensitive one and I am not having here an opinion about that topic, just mentioning that the gun culture is exported around the world with the US media.
You don't have any kids and don't spend any time with kids if you think Hollywood is exporting "defend the tribe".
I could be wrong, I can't perform an experiment where I remove games and movies with guns and then measure if children will play more with cars and airplanes then guns.
(and no, I'm no gun nut but I was very interested in guns as a kid - as many other kids.)
- I don't have older siblings
- I didn't go to kindergarten
- and I generally can't recall playing much with other kids except for my younger brothers before I started in school
There must be an explanation - I don't think this was a miracle and I also think guns hasn't existed mong enough to make an impression on our genes - but I don't know it.
If they have no knowledge of swords, they'll hit each other with sticks. Can't get much more primitive than a stick.
What would that relative measurement tell you? Nothing. The mixture is different for each kid. But I can tell you the play fight, with whatever tools they think are appropriate, is 100% universal.
In fact if a boy didn't do that at all, I'd honestly have him tested for a developmental delay.
I have always just assumed, once being boys, that other men understood that the allure of a weapon, even just a stick, is so instinctive that we all understood it intrinsically.
Other example of shocking image/video for someone like me , a father sending his 10(or younger son in the house to bring his shotgun outside, or a different father training his 10 years old daughter to shoot a shotgun (or maybe are rifles I don't know exactly what the guns were)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rare-roman-cavalry...
I disagree with that generalization. I grew up in the 1980s playing with quasi-realistic metal toy pistols (revolvers) and so did pretty much every other boy that I knew. Maybe that has changed a lot in the last ~15-20 years, however the majority of adults today that grew up playing with toy guns in the US would have at some point come across metal guns as well the plastic fare. Until more recently it was a very common type of toy. As recently as the mid 1990s, it would not have been strange at all to see metal pistols played with in kindergartens across the US. And then further it varies heavily by location, you're still going to commonly see metal toy guns in places like Texas and surrounding states, the midwest and the southern states.
You can go to yard sales all over the US and buy toy metal guns. Or just take a look at Amazon or eBay, they're still commonly sold in new form (search for toy metal guns and variations). Metal toy cap guns in particular remain popular in the US.
I had a wide array of weapons. I don't think the same would be acceptable for my kids, in fact my (much) younger brothers weren't allowed guns, but as another commenter pointed out, every stick and piece of Lego became a gun for them anyway.
When LotR came out they did persuade their grandad to make them smoking pipes, I found that disturbing!