Is a threat a threat?

On Monday, December 13th, as I picked up my son from daycare, I had a harrowing experience. One of my son's friends from school came up to me and said, "Isaac's mommy-- Isaac said he was going to shoot my daddy."

Absolute.shock.

I didn't even know what to say. My son doesn't know anything about guns. And I'm not even being stupidly naive about this. He doesn't. We don't buy him any toys that have little toy guns, nothing of the sort. So, I collected Isaac, and headed to the car. During the 20 minute drive home, I gave all the "appropriate" speeches to my son. "We don't say things like that," "That is mean", etc. Then it dawned on me.

How did my son even hear about "shooting someone"?

So I delved deeper. Asked my son where he heard the word "shoot." He informed me that his little pal had told him during playtime that he was "going to shoot Isaac's mommy and daddy." So, basically-- my son retaliated in kind. My son is fiercely protective of me. Once, when he was about 2 years old, we were at the mall, shopping for something, and some man in front of us at the checkout started berating a cashier for *something*, cursing and all.. and I turned to the man and asked him to please watch his language, as there were kids in the store.. imagine my surprise when this 6 foot 5 bear of a man turned to me and started yelling at me. All sorts of foul insults.. and my 3 foot 2 year old son turned to this man, shook his finger at him and yelled, "You don't talk to my mommy like that!" The man was taken aback, and shortly thereafter, thrown out of the store by a manager.

So, to hear that Isaac said something like that in response to a threat posed by a playmate didn't surprise me at all.

What surprised me was his teacher's complete lack of response to the incident. I get that the teacher has 10 kids in her class at any given time, and that she cannot possibly *hear* everything that the kids say, but this seems a little extreme to miss. But I'll let it go. What I *won't* let go is the fact that when the other child told me when I picked up Isaac what Isaac had said, the teacher was sitting a mere 3 feet away, this child repeated the statement about 4 times, and what did this teacher do??

Nothing. Not one word, no "We don't say things like that, etc." Nothing.

And it dug at me.

What is wrong with this world that I have to be so worried about the words of a fellow 3 year old boy? Maybe it's the fact that if Isaac and his friend were a mere year and a half older and in kindergarten-- they would be ceremoniously suspended. At least in Texas. They suspend kids for saying stuff like this. It is taken *very* seriously. But at three, I had to take it upon myself to bring it to the attention of the Daycare Director, because it perturbed me so.

And why does it bother me? Do I really believe that this child is gonna pull out a glock and put a slug in me? Of course not. Even though I know that there have been stories of children not much older than mine killing a fellow friend, or injuring someone "playing" with a gun. Does it bother me that I don't know whether the other child's father actually owns a gun? A little bit.

Does a parent have a right to know if their child's playmate's parents have a gun in the house? Am I wrong for thinking that I *do* have a right to know this? There are only a small handful of people I know who keep guns in their homes, and more power to them. They are very straightforward about it, and I know that they all practice gun safety. The gun isn't loaded. The gun is in one place, the bullets in another. The government says that it is legal for you to own a gun, and until that law changes, there is nothing I can do about it. No matter how I feel about the topic.

But-- as a parent, do I have a right to even ASK that question? Is it rude? Is it crass? Do I care? Absolutely not. Being rude or crass has never stopped me before, and it sure isn't going to now.

The sad thing of this, is when I was older than Isaac, and maybe even when I was as young as him-- we used to play "Cowboys and Indians" or "Cops and Robbers", in the street, no less. And nobody ever had to tell us that guns were wrong, or that they could really hurt people. We knew that. It was pure logic.

Have we, as parents, been robbing our children of their childhoods? With all the warnings we have to give them.. "Don't talk to strangers", "Guns are bad". Yes, we all got those talks when we were kids, but the explanations that we have to give our kids now are a bit different. When our parents told us, "Don't talk to strangers", and we asked why not-- the answer was simple. "Because I said so." These days, I find that parents feel they have to inform their children a little more, so now the reply has changed to "Because there are people who could hurt you."

Why do we have to tell our kids things like this? I realize that we don't *have* to. But we choose to. And in making this choice-- are we taking away a piece of our children's innocence? Are we robbing them of their childhood?

I don't really want an answer, but feel free to leave one. I just needed to get all of this out of my head. :)