Saturday, January 21, 2012

A tribe

A boy needs a tribe. I read that in a book about raising boys. Fortunately, my kids have their own tribe. They've got their tribe that right now consists of male members of their family. Dad, uncles, grandfathers, and older cousins. We even have some friends and teachers that I would include in this tribe. These are all people that my boys look up to whether those people want to be looked up to or not. I'm so grateful my boys have good men to learn from. I'm even grateful my boys have good men to just look at and watch.
So here is my eight year old shooting his first gun. Well, its not actually his gun, but its his first time shooting one. My husband and I have decided that none of our kids can shoot a gun until they are eight, nor own one until they are 12. So Atticus was pretty excited to turn eight. He'd gone shooting with his two older cousins and just watched, which I'm sure was a little hard to do. But now that he's eight he can go whenever Dad goes.
Judge me if you want to. I know there are strong views about guns out there. I believe that if a responsible parent is present and involved in teaching their child about guns it can become an important skill for that child in the future. I wish I knew how to shoot a gun. I took my four kids on a road trip without my husband a few months back. I would have felt a lot more protected if I had any knowledge of shooting and even holding a gun properly. Fortunately, nothing scary happened. I just think that if we don't teach our children about guns, they may find out for themselves somewhere else. At a friends house, on the street, etc. The same thing goes for sex and drugs and all those other things that we don't want to have to talk about. As parents we have to confront those topics head on and make sure our child hears about them from us first. Blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, Atticus was a pretty good shot for his first time. I think I'll go next time and learn how to shoot myself.

1 comment:

Lindsay RC Wilson said...

Love the new pictures, especially Miss Baby (and friend).