After hearing of Nathaniel Hawthorne yesterday, I sat down on my couch and noticed two toy guns my son got from a trip to Disneyland last year (Indiana Jones guns). It got me to thinking about whether I should allow him to play with them. I don't allow him to play violent computer/video games nor do allow him to watch violent movies. He spent the night at my sisters house once and she let him (and her kids) watch the movie 'The Patriot' (a war movie)and 'American Werewolf in Paris'. Movies I would never let him watch. THe next day he was yapping on and on about war and cannonballs knocking people's heads off and such. Is this just him being a boy?(I've never understood WHY boys/men do the things they do. I'm female)
And if so, why are boys/men so intrigued with gross, gruesome, and sometimes frightening shit? (when I was 7, I remember my cousins beggin me to let them stab my dead goldfish before I buried it). How do you know if you're raising a Jeffrey Dahmer or Nathaniel Hawthorne or not? Not that I think my boy is a sicko, but I'm worried here, so I'm rambling. I know I can't shield him from all the bad elements of life, but how do you know which ones will stick, and when that interest in stabbing fish is something more than boys being boys, but boys at the early stages of becoming sick men? Make sense? I hope so.

I want him to be disturbed by death and violence, not intrigued by it. Are we desensitizing our children by allowing them to witness violent acts on television and play violent games?

I'm interested in knowing what OKP's think about allowing kids to play with violent toys/video games or watch violent movies. Are we breeding a bunch of violent children? Was Nathaniel Hawthorne just a product of bad parenting? WOuld I be overreacting if I threw out my sons' guns, swords, etc.??? What do yall think?

y'all *really* think" that you're tricking somebody into something don't you? what you don't realize is that most women decide within the first 5 minutes of meeting a dude whether or not they'll sleep with him. all your "game" is merely entertainment. - H