The Play Date Gun Debate

[SecularMotion]

Returning from a play date, my 6-year-old son tumbled through the door and announced, “Did you know so-and-so’s dad has guns?” The concept, in and of itself, wasn’t surprising. We’d recently moved to a bucolic town in northern Michigan where many families were recreational hunters. But the fact that I didn’t know any real details about the situation — whether the guns were locked away or who had access to them — suddenly made me nervous.

And just like that, I’d uncovered one of my parenting blind spots. Naturally, I’d taken other precautions to keep my family safe, like covering electrical outlets from a toddler’s tiny, prying fingers and learning the Heimlich maneuver. How had I overlooked the issue of unsecured guns in the homes my sons visited?

Though the only thing I’d ever wielded was a hot glue gun, I liked to think that if I owned a firearm it would be stored in its proper place at all times. But as I scanned my house — with last night’s dirty casserole dish left out in the open and a basket of clean laundry still needing to be stowed — I wasn’t so sure.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I knew very little about the home lives of the friendly new families in my children’s social circles. It was no longer O.K. for me to just continue assuming they were responsible with firearms, especially since that definition could mean different things in different households. Accidents do happen, after all — we’ve all heard statistics and stories. (Just recently a 4-year-old boy was able to find a rifle in his home and accidentally kill a 6-year-old playmate in his yard. In another senseless tragedy, another young child picked up a gun at a family gathering and killed the wife of a sheriff’s deputy.)

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/the-play-date-gun-debate/?hp

[Brickbat]

1. This is interesting. I went entirely the opposite direction on my parenting thoughts and approaches.

When my first was born, I was positive I was going to be That Parent, who quizzed play-date parents about the status of guns in their homes. And while those conversations can be important to have, gun safety still starts with me and how I teach my children. I don't think I've ever asked about gun safety in someone else's home. Chances are, I know, because I've been to the house, or I know the parents, or something along those lines. I don't ask about alcohol or matches or porn caches or what's available on the computer, either. And I'm not afraid to say no to my kids if they want to go over someone's house and I don't want them to.

ETA: Also, only the New York Times could make the concept of parents being aware of their kids' friends' families be so angst-ridden and overwrought, could make the idea of talking to other parents like grownups seem like such a revolutionary solution to an insurmountable ordeal.