Random Thoughts

Listening to Wheeler on Monday as he played by himself (which is a rarity, the boy DOES NOT like to play by himself,)  I REALLY listened.  He is so peculiar.  Having never been an almost 5 year old boy myself, I wondered, do all little boys play like this, talk to themselves like this?  He was playing with a mixture of army men, aliens, space ships, astronauts, and dinosaurs (gotta love his imagination!)  They were all in space, somewhere.  Everything seemed fine and cheerful, and then came the "your head is blasted off!"  "Take that, you bad guys!" "Off with your heads!"  "Ohh, here you are my pretty."  He had engrossed himself into a little story line with them, and I loved it, but I wondered why all the violence.  We try to keep him away from violent things on TV and in movies, but man, it's hard! Violence is everywhere.

We have let him watch the original Star Wars, and while I'm not a Star Wars fan, at all!, they aren't as violent as a lot of cartoons these days.  I really miss the days of Smurfs (well, Gargamel was trying to get all the Smurfs, would that have been considered bad in our day) Tom and Jerry (although if you really watch, Tom is forever trying to get Jerry, was that bad?) and Bugs Bunny (oh, wait, Elmer Fudd was after that "wascally wabbitt! with his gun.)  Why is it that what was actually violence back then, is considered classic now and we think it wasn't so bad?  Sure, the gore factor wasn't there.  Is it that since I watched those cartoons as kids I don't think it's bad?  (Actually, we've pulled Tom and Jerry from the cartoon list for now.)

I don't have any answers to my questions necessarily.  Just thinking through the keyboard.

I guess what it boils down to is that it is MY JOB to expose my children and explain things to them the way I want.  I can't let mainstream society teach them that violence is the norm, but I can't shield them from it, either (that bubble isn't big enough for the four of us! LOL)

Ok, so I know this isn't my normal type of post full of pictures, but it's just what's been running through this jumbled brain of mine.