The Y chromosome

About 4 1/2 years ago, I gave birth to a boy. And he just keeps getting more and more boy!

He's rough and tumble. He plays hard. He likes cars and balls and superheroes and cowboys and firefighters and knights. He will show you his muscles and tell you that he's the strongest boy in the world.

But along with that bravado comes a love of weapons and a need to defeat bad guys and a desire to wallop anything that gets in his way.

And I find myself in a difficult spot. 

Do I write it all off as "boys will be boys" or do I crack down now in an attempt to dial back the aggressiveness?

I'm trying to find a happy medium, but that's often hard to do. There's so much violence out there nowadays, it's impossible to keep kids from seeing it. So how do you help them navigate it and figure out what's real and what isn't?

And the older I get, the less of it I can handle myself.

I used to go see horror movies when I was a teenager. Now, there are TV shows that depict as much violence as Rated R movies. I don't know if it's my age or being a mother, but I can't handle that much gore and violence myself, much less think about my young son being exposed to it.

Jeff and I talk a lot about our own childhoods and how our parents dealt with things. We were both lucky enough to grow up with both parents and strong family ties. So oftentimes we trade stories, then figure out our parenting approach.

Biscuit got some mail last week that included some spending money for him. We talked about what he might want to do with it, and he said he wanted to buy something to do with Ninja Turtles. So when we were shopping this evening, we went to the toy department to see what they had.

We narrowed it down to an action figure or a costume. And the costume won out.

My only hesitation ... the costume came with weapons.

The turtle he likes best uses sais (pointed metal prongs with handles). These are made of plastic of course, but even so, we had a nice long talk about how they could and could not be used. As in, if you point them at another person, you don't get to play with them for a while.

Another big concern is that the rules at day care don't allow shoot-em-up or other weapons play. And from what I hear, elementary schools are strict about that, too.

But I'm hoping that with some coaching from us, Biscuit will be able to rescue the victims, defeat the bad guys and have everybody live happily ever after.

I'm not sure what the rules are about
mixing a firefighter shirt with Ninja Turtle gear,
but Biscuit didn't have a problem with it.

Striking a pose! Biscuit shows how his favorite
turtle posed on the cover of a comic book.