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Real war is different from playing army. I know that. But I still feel uncomfortable when I see a 6-year-old toting a plastic machine gun – especially when it’s my kid.

le="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">When our first child was born, my husband and I both agreed (at least I thought we both agreed) that we would not allow our son to play with toy guns. Guns, we asserted – even water pistols shaped like animals – promote violence, aggression and general boy-like behavior that I worried would lead my child to drop out of school and build explosives in our basement.

le="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">I protected my firstborn as best I could from anything remotely violent. I hid the front page of the newspaper to shield him from gruesome pictures of warfare. I refused to watch the nightly news – even after he went to bed – lest the word “kill” drift into his subconscious. I even boycotted our town’s annual Fourth of July parade because the Revolutionary War re-enactors carried reproduction muskets that they fired with a fiendish delight all along the parade route.

le="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">I felt smug. I had done my job. My child was almost 5 and he had never heard the word “gun,” or been exposed to anything more violent than a sneeze. He was pure and innocent and peace-loving. Or so I thought.

le="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Then, one morning at breakfast, he waved a half-eaten slice of toast and emitted a sound that exactly mimicked an Uzi submachine gun.

le="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">“Phhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttttt!”

le="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">“Is that a little airplane?” I asked anxiously.

le="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">“No, it’s a shooter,” he replied, calmly aiming the toast at me.

le="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">I was appalled. How had this happened? I thought back to my college psychology classes and theories of the collective unconscious.

le="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">“Do you want Mommy to put jelly on your toast?” I asked, hoping to squash his imagination.