Circle C kids picture-- opinions? (Austin, College Station: day care, house, neighborhoods)

[littlewmn]

OK, I know you can't expect political oneness out of Austin, and "live and let live" is the city motto and I don't mean that in a bad way at all...but is this typical of Circle C kids? I kinda was hoping to find a more peace-oriented groove here than College Station. Is this the part of Austin it is or does gun-lovin' Texas supercede liberal Austin (and *yes* I do know both are stereotypes)


Southwest Austin Neighborhood Circle C Patriotic kids play weapons - Collective Vision | Photoblog for the Austin American-Statesman

[centralaustinite]

I think it is pretty typical of kids, period! (Plus the US has been at war for these kids' entire lives!) I know Quaker kids with nurf guns who like to run and chase. I live in central Austin in a super-liberal voting district, deep blue territory and my kids love to run around with toy guns and swords and re-enact Star Wars, etc. If they could find a US flag (they are displayed in the neighborhood) I'm sure they'd carry it around too. (Frankly, if these were my kids, I'd take the flag away, too easy to drop it on the ground, etc).

[G Grasshopper]

Well, it makes me a little queasy, too. Personally, I don't care for Texas' gun culture. But it is true that this generation of kids has grown up in war times, and it is also true that kids will find a way to make guns. I never allowed any toy gun in our house when my son was young, but on occasion I would find that he had made one of sticks or something else. So kids are attracted to that, and they reflect their culture. If I were the parent of one of those kids, I would talk to him/her about the experience, and would make sure that my values of non-violence were clear to the child. But I would not read too much into those pictures. I would also be concerned not only about misuse of the flag, but also about kids mistaking flag waving for true patriotism and thoughtful citizenship.

[CptnRn]

I am surprised that anyone would be disturbed by those photos. I thought they were cute and have no reason to think those kinds of activities are limited to Circle C. Chances are some of those kids have family or relatives in the military, which does tend to result in more patriotic displays by the family members.

I grew up in Wyoming were guns are common place, yet gun violence is very rare. I also recognize that most of the hard won freedoms we enjoy in this country were won with some degree of rebellion, violence and bloodshed. I don't think it is a Texas gun culture, to me it represents an American gun culture.

For some reason I have always associated being liberal with being open minded, but I recognize that both liberals and conservatives can be extremists. I consider myself liberal by Texas standards, but I own guns, display the American flag on some holidays and am pro-American while at the same time being critical of my government. Which I think is part of being a good American. I refused to fight in vietnam, but would defend my country at the drop of a hat. I highly distrust the corporate interests that are gaining political power in our country and would be very fearful regarding our future if the citizenry could not bear arms.

[justanothercalifornian]

I'd much rather my kids be outside playing pretend guns than inside all day watching tv and playing video games. I used to live in one of the most liberal places on earth and those kids played guns, even though it was not a PC thing to be doing around there. I thought the pictures were sweet. and even though we are not a gun owning family, I find no harm in what they were doing.

[AMJ27]

I'm a left wing Circle C resident. I don't allow play guns in our house, although my kids do have lightsabers. If it were up to my husband (also very liberal), the kids would be allowed to have toy guns only because it was his favorite thing to play with when he was growing up.

I don't think any of our Circle C friends kids have toy guns (at least, I haven't seen any), but there are some older elementary/middle school aged kids that run around with toy guns.

Last year, when we visited Austin during my husband's interview, we saw a group of boys running around with toy rifles in one of the SW neighborhoods we drove through and I was very taken a back. In the midwest, I remember kids playing with toy guns when I was growing up, but as an adult I never saw kids playing with toy guns in the Chicago suburbs. It certainly would have raised some eyebrows.

[Jennibc]

Originally Posted by littlewmn

OK, I know you can't expect political oneness out of Austin, and "live and let live" is the city motto and I don't mean that in a bad way at all...but is this typical of Circle C kids? I kinda was hoping to find a more peace-oriented groove here than College Station. Is this the part of Austin it is or does gun-lovin' Texas supercede liberal Austin (and *yes* I do know both are stereotypes)


Southwest Austin Neighborhood Circle C Patriotic kids play weapons - Collective Vision | Photoblog for the Austin American-Statesman

Why on earth would you think ONE photo of SIX kids is representative of an entire neighborhood that probably has thousands of children?

[love roses]

Kids'll make guns out of anything. If they don't actually have toy guns, they'll use Legos, connector blocks, their fingers, bubble wands, etc...I have no problem with it, as long as they understand that real guns can hurt people and they understand how to responsibly use a real one, stay away from them if they see one laying around, etc..A lot of these kids have parents that hunt, so they DO understand that their dad/mom use them to bring back food and that they aren't toys to be played with. Parents try and keep them away from toy guns, but then take them to see movies like Transformers and Iron Man and then don't want them to re-enact that scenario. I'm not saying that anyone here does that, but there are parents out there that do. One of my cousins raised her kids that way (no toys with anything to do with guns, including StarWars, light sabers, cowboys and what have you) and her oldest son ironically has ended up in the Air Force.

I 2nd CptnRn on the pics. Nothing really odd about it, these kids are exposed to it everyday. The bottom photo actually looks like they might be copying something they may have seen in a parade.

If that picture had been taken of some boys in the neighborhood where I grew up, it would have been with them holding real bb guns instead of toy ones. Different times though.

[txgolfer130]

Wolverines!

[TexasHorseLady]

When our son, our first child, was growing up, we had an absolutely strict rule - no toy guns. All of our friends and the parents of his friends at day care, likewise (we were all a bunch of hippies).

When he picked up sticks to play gun with them, I took them away and explained why he shouldn't do so. Likewise with making legos into guns. This in spite of the fact that I learned to shoot a rifle when I was 8 (I was a late bloomer in that crowd and time - my Daddy the preacher, probably the most peaceful man you could possibly imagine, finally taught me how to shoot).

The day that I found my 3-year-old son eating a piece of bread into the shape of a gun so that he could play guns, it occurred to me that maybe, possibly, I was interfering with something developmental in service to being politically correct, so we cut it out.

Today, that little boy doesn't own a gun (except the one we gave him when he was a teenager, that is still here at home). He leans to the left politically, and is extremely non-violent. Doesn't have a problem with guns, either - he thinks for himself and knows better.

I think WAY too much is made of things like this.