Playing With Boys

I love being a mother to boys. They can be playful, thoughtful, physical, and forthright. There's something about their energy that makes me proud and their quiet intensity that makes me even prouder. I am eager to introduce them to the world in all its variety, and I am humbled to think that someday they will be grown men. I also love that right now I get to enjoy their adorableness, before they sprout beards.

However, amidst all this happy testosterone, there is a dark side... Giving birth to boys does not mean I naturally love all the things boys love. As they grow, I'm discovering just how male their interests can be.

In a vague way, I've known that men tend to like competition, vehicles, hunting, fighting, etc. I see the popularity of superheroes, football, boxing, NASCAR, the Marine Corps, action movies, and the NRA. Still, it's another thing entirely when you see these bents embodied in your 5-year-old. 

Growing up fast!

My oldest loves to think about, talk about, and pretend epic fights: good guys, bad guys, vehicles, weapons, explosions, and--yes--death. With legos, play-doh, action figures, blocks - anything can be an enemy, a spaceship, a projectile. He mines his friends for information about Star Wars or Ninjago, asks us lots of difficult questions (What's a bazooka?), latches on to any references he encounters (they're everywhere, including the grocery store), and weaves his own complicated tales of intergalactic wars far, far away.

Even as I write, I think how fun this probably sounds. And it can be. For about ten minutes. After days and weeks and months of discussing every crevice of the Millenium Falcon, I don't find it so enthralling. In fact, I've found it a bit disturbing.

You see, while my 5-year-old can tell you what's real and what's pretend (we've discussed this at length), he does not understand the realities of violence, pain, or death. I'm pretty sure this is a good thing, as it would be traumatic if he did. But it means they're just abstract concepts, plot twists in his lengthy stories. So he has no problem walking around talking about decapitation, planets exploding, skeletons and snakes fighting to the death, etc, etc, etc.

Since I've never before lived with a young boy, this has all taken me by storm. He's a really sweet boy! Loving, gentle, obedient, helpful. He knows the gospel (on some level), loves rules (he makes them up just for fun), his teachers rave about him, and his preschool told me he helps balance out the "rowdier" boys in his class. How could this boy--who loves his newborn brother SO well--spend the day talking about war!?

Having a very weak stomach for violence myself (even weaker while I was pregnant), I've tried a number of responses to temper his references to it:

1. The Reformer: We don't want to kill anyone; we just want to help the bad guys become good guys!
His response: He was so bad he would never become good.

2. The Creationist: We don't want to kill anyone because God made them!
His response: It was a bad robot. God didn't make the robot.

3. The Diverter: Let's talk about your Sunday school lesson instead!
His response: David should have used a different weapon against Goliath.

4. The Challenger: Let's see how long you can go without talking about death or dying!
His response: Let's not.

5. The Cautionary Tale: Be careful what you pretend, because if you pretend something enough, you could eventually want it to be real.
His response: It's not real.

All of which has recently led me to...

6. The Enabler: We watched Star Wars with him, read the Ninjago story together, and played with the Batman Lego set.
His response: To discuss each all the more. The "forbidden fruit" didn't become less enticing once they were legal.

But something else did change: What was a source of tension has become a source of fellowship. We're bonding, and he is beyond thrilled. I've tried to stop my reflexive resistance to his interests (and my not-so-subtle attempts to brainwash him into being a pacifist - not that I am). It finally occurred to me that I love a good saga (Hello? Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter? The Hunger Games?), I want him to fight evil, his interests are not unusual for his age, and our relationship is far more important to his future than the stories he makes up while playing legos.

I do want to set appropriate boundaries to protect him from overly mature content. But I also never want to hide the world from him, dampen his inclination toward heroism, or let my prejudices limit our friendship. Which means that I am spending more time in the world of men. Thankfully, I'm finding it's not unkind to women. You should see my fencing skills...