We’ve all seen it many times. A little boy starts playing with toy dinosaurs and inevitably it seems, the dinosaurs soon begin to fight. But does it really have to be that way?
A couple of years ago I was in training to provide a particular type of therapy that involves parents and children playing together. We were advised against using toy dinosaurs because “dinosaurs always fight.” My response to this advice was simply, “In my house, dinosaurs don’t fight.” I may have sounded somewhat smug, maybe even arrogant but I certainly didn’t mean it that way. I simply meant that my son didn’t play with his dinosaurs that way. At the time he was only three. We hadn’t taught him that dinosaurs fight. Nor, had we let him watch any media depictions of the creatures in combat.
Fast forward to today. I just read an article advising that dads should encourage our sons to play with dolls, even if the child shows no particular interest in dolls. Apparently dressing and feeding dolls is supposed to teach your little guy that it’s normal for boys and men to be nurturing people. I’m sorry but if you are not showing your son through your own example that men can be caring nurturers, then playing with dolls ain’t gonna get it. If we want our sons to grow into nurturing men, we need to provide them with good examples. We can only do this by being the men that we want our sons to become. We are blueprints on which the next generation of men will be built.
If your son likes dolls then by all means buy him some dolls and join him when he wants to play with them. Don’t worry, real men can play with dolls and, to paraphrase ever masculine, Agent J, we make this look good. Whatever you do, please don’t be fooled into thinking that you should push your son into doing something that neither of you wants, to do just because some “expert” says you should. There are much better ways to raise boys into men with the capacity to be loving and gentle human beings.
And for the record, my son now understands that carnivores sometimes hunt and this means that some dinosaurs did kill others. He also understands that hunting for survival or defending ones self from a predator is neither something to glorify nor condemn. It’s simply the way of nature. And dinosaurs still don’t fight in our house.