March 11, 2001
When will they study for war no more?
___ Last Sunday during morning worship, Luke and Garrett sat with Mrs. Jernberg and Mrs. Rosamond, two of the saints of our church, so I could help serve the Lord's Supper and Alison could sing in the choir.
___When I walked over to the other side of the sanctuary to pick up the boys, Garrett remained seated in the pew, drawing furiously with one of the pew-rack pencils. Mrs. Rosamond laughed and said she had to shake her head in amazement at the contrast she had just witnessed.
___ The choir had sung a beautiful benediction, "Let Us Go in Peace," by John Rutter. All the while, Garrett sat three rows from the front drawing a weapon of mass destruction on the front of the Sunday bulletin. His rendition of a certain military aircraft was as vivid as the message sung by the choir--only different, I suppose.
MARK WINGFIELD
___ The good news is both boys were well-behaved during church, according to their kind chaperones. No doubt they would have preferred to see fireworks exploding on the platform than hear a message of peace and reconciliation, though.
___ Where do boys get this obsession with weaponry?
___ God is our witness that Alison and I started on the parenting journey with the determination of pacifists. Before the twins had begun to chatter or crawl, we determined they would not play with toy guns, military costumes and all the other kid-paraphernalia that glories violence. No Rambo dolls, no GI Joes, no six-shooters, no cap-guns. Further, we would not expose them to such violence on television or in videos, we proudly proclaimed.
___ We might as well have posted a "No Exposure to Violence Here" sign on the front door.
___Seems like the first time one of the boys picked up a stick in the yard, however, he turned it into a pretend gun. We should have known then to give up the fight.
___ But, alas, we continued with the delusion that we could outwit nature and hormones. Now they're drawing weapons on the church bulletin while the choir sings about peace.
___At least they were quiet.
___With the atmosphere of war all around us, it is hard to focus the boys' minds on other things. But, as Mark pointed out, this started way before the war on terrorism.
___ In first and second grade, they started checking out the books from their school library--fighter jets, tanks, weapons, you name it. I was appalled. What happened to the dinosaur books? Now I laugh at myself when I see the exact same thing happen with the kindergarten and first grade boys that I help check out when I work as a library volunteer. Boys and their toys.
___Now Luke and Garrett havebecome fascinated with World War II, partly because of their Cub Scout visit to the U.S.S. Lexington and also because of all the hype from the Pearl Harbor movie. And, no, much to their chagrin, we have not let them see the movie.
ALISON WINGFIELD
___Another naïve misconception of ours as novice parents was that we would try not to allow any gender stereotyping. If our boys wanted to play with dolls, we would let them (of course, we didn't buy them girl dolls, but I did get a boy one). It didn't matter. One of Garrett's first words was "ball." Balls, Legos, army guys and action figures soon followed.
___I watch the twin girls who live across the street play their games and marvel at the differences. Sure, they like to play sports. And they do have almost as much energy as the boys. They just channel it so differently.
___Garrett and some friends recently put together a Power Point presentation on World War II at school for open house. It was full of weapons, and each point was emphasized with the sound of gun fire. In contrast, some girls did their presentation singing "Happy Days" and had lots of flowers springing up everywhere.
___What's a parent of boys to do?
___We do try to point out examples of helping people, like the firefighters in New York. And we tell them that although war is sometimes inevitable, it's not the best solution in the long run.
___Our hope and prayer is that as they mature, God will give them the desire to beat their swords into plowshares
PREVIOUS HE SAID/ SHE SAID COLUMNS:
2001: 1/1, 1/8, 1/22, 2/5, 2/12, 3/5, 4_19, 4/2, 4/23, 5/14 6/11, 6/25, 7/9, 7/23, 8/13, 9/3, 9/17, 10/9, 11/26, 12/3, 12/17
2002: 1/14, 2/4
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