Playing with Imaginary Guns

Last night while we were brushing our teeth, Orlando started telling me all the things that a gum could do.

“You can use the gum to poke people.”

“You can point the gum down and hurt your foot.”

“You can point the gum up and then the things come down like rain and land on you.”

I asked him how he found out all those things about guns.

He said, “I just learned that myself.”

And then he said, “Richard told me that the gum makes a person day-o. Duh-de.”

“What?”

“Dud-deee.”

“What are you saying? I can’t hear it.”

“D - E - …That one.”

“D - E - A - D? Dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s okay for you to say that word.”

“Because,” he earnestly began, “If you use a gum on a robber, then in three days he will be dead. But on humans, they will be alive four days, and then they will die. And then we hope they had a good life.”

I resisted the urge to tell him that robbers are humans, too.

And to tell him that they are guNs.

I pronounce it correctly each time I say it, but he hasn’t picked up on it yet. I had no idea the mispronunciation would go on this long, yet somewhere, deep in my heart, I knew the fascination was just beginning.

Thus, as we were getting in bed, he said, “Mama, I want to know about the powerful things. What are the other powerful things?”

“Well, there's love.”

“But that’s not powerful!” he scoffed.

“Sure it is. Love can heal people, connect them to one another…”

“But I want to know about the real things that can hurt people…” And then he started listing some examples.

Broken glass

falling down

getting burned

getting run over by a car (“and then you’d be dead!”)

falling out the window…

He went on and on, asking every once in a while, “What other ways can people get hurt?”

My contribution of “By being yelled at or called names,” was met with another scoff.

Back to the gross stuff, Mom.

Getting bitten, kicked, hit

getting your finger in a door

falling in the bathtub

getting poked in the eye…

Cue up Worried Mom, “Oh my god, why is so obsessed with these morbid things?”

Bring on the Little Girl I once was, “This is so gross! Can't we do something else now?”

Check in with the Centered Woman who trusts in the good of the world, “It’s a normal phase that he will grow out of. My job is to accompany him through this and to point him in the direction of goodness.”

And last but not least, Tired Mama shows up and silently begs the gods and goddesses to shut this kid up already so she could get some sleep!

He eventually did stop talking… and I spent the rest of my awake time thinking about walking the middle line between negligence and influence. About how I don’t want to squash his child’s view by enforcing “reality,” yet how I will bring reality into play when he looks to me for answers. About how the fact that he is using imaginary weapons rather than realistic-looking ones makes it a tad easier for me take the whole thing.

Mainly, I marveled over his impulse to learn. He wants to know the powerful things.

It wasn’t too long ago that he told me he wanted the beautiful things.

I feel a little wistful about the change.

But for now, I trust that beauty and power will meet up with love and connection, again, and again, in our lives, and that my child will come to know them all.

But for now, I tell myself, he is simply trying on the many faces of life… for now, he dons his lion suit, channels Godzilla, and wields an imaginary gum, pulling the trigger with fingernails painted pink.


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A few articles about the ever hot-button issue of gun play:

A short summary of gun play being okay.

Why uninhibited imaginative play is important for children's development.

Great review of Lawrence Cohen's book, Playful Parenting.

A rather academic article on the needs play fulfills.