The deluxe mighty powerful-awesome annihilating super soaker!
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- Dan_Ellsworth
- rahunter_nf
- lvmyboy
- Dan_Ellsworth
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» Dan_Ellsworth - Any research?
This is one of a long line of things that look like "grown-up" things, and it's a troubled question. My mother didn't want us to have candy cigarettes, and - strictly intuitively - I think she was right. However, I had a BB-gun and a water pistol, and acted differently with them. Parents are going on intuition here, and I'd like to see something more solid. I'm not comfortable with an exhortation to confidence - without something objective to back it up. Speaking of confidence, I'm quite confident that our allowing our sons to use the "water cannons" at a west Michigan water amusement park did not set back their development as gentle souls. But my confidence likewise has no research backing.I think if we got it all properly studied, there would turn out to be other variables, maybe ten times as important as the shape of the toys. But that opinion and four quarters will get you a dollar.
-- posted by Dan_Ellsworth
» rahunter_nf - My Experience
I appreciate Amy's point. However, like Dan, I was allowed a water pistol when I was growing up and have allowed my children to use one. I wasn't allowed candy cigarettes or a BB-gun and haven't allowed my children to use them.The only justification that I can give for my allowing water pistols and not the other items is that both I and my children viewed water pistols as a way to squirt water but the other items as junior versions of the real thing. For this reason, I don't plan to let my children play with toy guns, other than water pistols, even though I was allowed to.
-- posted by rahunter_nf
» lvmyboy - Re: My Experience
to clarify my stance(not just for you guys but in general) I don't like the water guns that they put out nowadays simply because they are so realistically designed to be like inappropriate weapons...does that make sense? I will purchase a pellet gun for my son when he is old enough to go to the range, can't wait to bring him hunting, want him to know about guns and respect them. I still don't think that those submachine guns that shoot water are good for kids..it helps to numb them to the reality of those types of weapons..in a normal everyday lifetime, our boys will not be handling, owning or using that kind of weaponry..unless they are in a specialized field like the armed forces or something.have I dug myself in even further?? LOL
oh, and thanks for the activity on my page gentlemen. I REALLY appreciate it!
-- posted by lvmyboy
» Dan_Ellsworth - On the way to good general principles
In response to message posted by lvmyboy - and the previous message by rahunter:Amy, you aren't "dug in" that I can see :-) -- still standing tall -- no matter what height you are -- and I think you and "Hunter" (a delicious minor irony there, maybe) are working towards the same principle.
From Bob: "... both I and my children viewed water pistols as a way to squirt water but the other items as junior versions of the real thing."
From Amy: "... I don't like the water guns that they put out nowadays simply because they are so realistically designed to be like inappropriate weapons...does that make sense?"
It makes sense. The water pistols of my childhood had colorful but see-through plastic which let us see the water level constantly - along with the fact that we had no "ammo" except water. In spite of the vaguely pistol shape, the overall appearance of the toy almost screamed "TOY!" If I somehow found myself with an actual pistol in my hand right now, I would have no sense of continuity with those squirt guns; the pistol would be massively, frighteningly different; I would know deeply and intuitively that I was not trained for this thing.
A convincing replica of a modern combat weapon seems to me to be a very different thing. And if you live in a dangerous neighborhood, and your kid shows an assault-rifle silhouette at dusk - to a policeman whose life may depend on a split-second decision - then I know it's inappropriate.
I agree that the best design for competitive portable water-squirting is what we use for watering ferns or wayward cats - perhaps scaled up for swimsuit situations. That even beats the cheapie plastic pistol-oids of my childhood: Less resemblance to weapons; bigger tanks.
Someday, I hope to engage my grandchildren (not yet conceived, thank you) in water-squirter foolishness during the hottest days, so I'm keeping an eye on such conversations as this.
Hey, Bob, she called us gentlemen! Does that mean we have to be all that? ;-)
-- posted by Dan_Ellsworth
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