Boys and Their Toys

It's funny how as the years go by we make different decisions in our parenting because of some new "teaching" or a new thought process occurs, and often the decisions we make for the older ones we would never make for the younger ones. We make our best decisions for that child given the wisdom (or lack of) that we have at that time. I often tell Matt that, as the oldest, he has unfortunately been the brunt of many of our mistakes. We often need to turn our thoughts back to our Creator and realize that He sovereignly purposed Matt to be our oldest child as much as he ordained Ryan to be our youngest, and He knew every mistake we would make and uses them for good in their lives. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to rely on this truth when hit with conviction and guilt about something I did or didn't do!

In this case, the issue at hand is guns! Play guns that is. (Well, sorta) Ryan and Jacob have airsoft guns which shoot real pellets and it can definitely sting if hit - but I cannot tell you how many hours they have spent shooting at each other as they hide in the woods, or shooting at targets they have made (spray painted logs or soda cans). Ryan had been missing vital parts to his gun (the charger) since we moved, and when Jacob found it for him yesterday, their interest in airsoft guns was rekindled! Jacob went out yesterday and bought a new one - it is a huge gun that can act as a machine gun, or as he put it, a "sniper" - and he plans to use it with Ryan today - as a matter of fact Danny wanted to play hookey from work and shoot with the boys!

Well, we never allowed Matt to have any type of gun as a child, thinking it promoted violence. Then we had two more boys and as we continued to read material on parenting sons, Danny read some book about helping boys become men, and in it he read that it is a good thing to allow a boy to have a gun to express his God-given masculinity, the instinct to be protective, the responsibility to handle it all with certain guidelines, etc. Bottome line - our younger two boys have guns. Matt, we are so sorry honey! (Good thing you know that parents aren't perfect and will make many mistakes!) I try to remember in these moments that Matt has had some priviliges that we will not extend to the younger children at such early ages - so there are some advantages to being oldest!! Again though, the "live and learn" principle!! Thankfully God has a plan for each of our children that even we, with our all human error, cannot thwart!