They compete about everything. They fight about
everything. They must bang and boom and shoot things.</i<>
I have a friend, a PhD in biology, who claims that in prehistoric times little boys were running around pointing their index fingers at things with their thumbs up and saying "bang, bang" without yet knowing why, but just knowing it is something boys do.
I have friend who is a violent pacifist, vegetarian, back-to-nature, etc. woman. When she had a son she committed herself to bringing him up free of violence. She would allow no toy guns in the house, (of course they would NEVER allow real guns in the house), never let him play with boys who played with guns, never let him watch any TV that had any violence in it (not even cartoons), never let him read any "bad" books, never let him engage in competitive sports but only in cooperative games, etc., etc., etc. -- in short, raise him "right" to be a peaceful, cooperative, nonviolent child. Of course, he turned out to be a little hellion (I knew him from infancy on and know his elementary school teachers), he would pick up sticks from the age of two on and use them as guns, loved to knock other kids down, snuck off and played sandlot football whenever he could, etc.
It was a riot watching her try to deal with this and persuade herself that she was not really a failure, but it was all society's fault, and she just didn't do a good enough job insulating him from bad influences. |
