The toy gun

My youngest, age 7, wanted to buy a toy gun. Two dollars at Chickenfeed.

I hate guns, and toy guns more specifically. In fact, I think I hate toy guns more than real guns. A real gun could potentially have some use, but a toy gun is just education.

So he knew that I hated guns, but he still wanted one, and he was prepared to pay for it

And so I mulled over the reasons pro and con.

Reasons against:

Reasons for:

Hmm, I thought. That’s more Good Reasons to let him get it than not to. But then I don’t get the outcome I want. What’s a parent to do?

So in the end, I said, “Get the gun, but leave it at Grandma’s.”

And as a result, he was happy. He got to choose. I communicated my Values clearly, but preserved his freedom of choice (which is another of my values). A clamp-down would have given me the outcome I wanted, but at the cost of his freedom and his belief that he can reason with me. That might have cost me later on.

It was a good balance. Except that he has a toy gun. I’m still not completely happy about that.

But he is.