Smoking. Guns.

By the time I was four years old, my mother had lost both of her parents. My grandfather to a heart attack; my grandmother to metastasized breast cancer. They had both been smokers- my grandfather until an earlier heart attack, my grandmother, until she was in the hospital dying, still asking for a cigarette. My mother, who was 23 when her second parent died, and had two small children, drove the point home so successfully that to this day, I have never smoked a cigarette. At 40, I'm unlikely to start. When I dated, smoking was a deal breaker. I married a recovered smoker. There is no smoking in my home or in the daily lives of my children.

Growing up, there was no smoking in my home. Period. Smoking was not just unacceptable: it was an impossibility. This law also covered candy cigarettes, and was extended to include neighborhood friends. Smoking is not a game; cigarettes are poison, I remember her removing the lovely pack of chalky-sugar-covered cylinders of gum from my Halloween loot one year, and breaking up a clandestine backyard moment where the neighborhood grade-schoolers stood with a pack of the colorful round "cigarettes, " posing like older siblings, one hip jutted out to the side, one hand on waist, puffing at the sugared dust to make "smoke." Smoking is not a game. Cigarettes are not good toys.

I don't know if I can possibly do as thorough a job terrifying my children into never smoking, or if such a level of certainty that smoking leads to premature and tragic death is even necessary to promote their future well being. We don't smoke. Gone arethe days when preschoolers came home proudly wielding ashtrays made and paintedin arts and crafts class; characters in kids' movies never smoke unless theyare villains, and even then pains aretaken to point smoking out as a trait associated with the rude, the cruel, the inconsiderate. When I taught first-year studentsat Brooklyn College several years ago, the class admitted to being uncomfortable with thecasual smoking of several characters in a 1960s novel. In short, the message seems to besinking in: smoking is bad. It's a bad habit that compromises good health, and good standing in polite society. Cigarette companies have been sanctioned. Studies show that smoking rates are decreasing among teens and other minors, which will hopefully cut down on the number of life-long smokers in future decades. I am so very glad for these things. Parents now have a network of institutional support to help discourage our kids from smoking, and to help counteract the advertising power of cigarette companies. Smoking is no longer glamorized in the media; smoking is no longer the norm.

If only we could get to this place with guns.

My personal philosophy when it comes to giving gifts to children has always been: no Barbies, no guns. My husband and I have agreed that no guns of any kind will be allowed in our home. This means no toy guns, no water guns, no ball-shooting Emperor Zurg dolls. We have, fortuitously, watched The Iron Giant as a family approximately 752 times. One of the messages of that film: guns kill. Our message: guns kill. Guns are not good toys.

They turn sticks into guns, is the familiar, patronizing refrain from other adults, especially those who had children before I did. But for anyone who wonders whether we are taking this too far, whether it's plain futile to take a stand against what seems like an innate tendency, whether it's silly to take the trouble to find non-gun water-expelling playthings for the summer - there are such things, we have several, and they could still be construed as guns -consider this: when we buy our children play food sets and play tea sets, we don't expect (and would likely be horrified to find) pretend ashtrays and cigarettes among the pieces. And until the same is true for toy guns, for heroes with guns, for cartoon characters with guns of any sort, I don't see a better route than parental vigilance, bordering on psychosis, to drive home the message: guns kill. Guns are not good toys. Even toy guns.

After the most recent gun massacre, the discussion has come again to the forefront. Is anyone else struck by the insanity of that phase? The most recent gun massacre - because we haven't learned anything from the ones that came before. But the chilling statistics are not the ones that came out of Newtown, Connecticut. According to the numbers cited in this Huffington Post article:

"In 2011, guns were used to murder 8,583 people living in the U.S..... Among those murdered by guns, there were 565 young people under the age of 18, and 119 children ages 12 or younger -- the latter number nearly equivalent to six Newtown mass shootings. And these figures include only homicides." 

What stuns me is that we don't treat the out-of-control gun situation like the national health emergency that it is. We were able to draw the connection between smoking and death, and curb the powers that saught to make cigarette smoking attractive to our children. And though the illness and death of a smoker certainly has a ripple effect on those around her, as well as our national healthcare system, no one is bursting into a kindergarten classroom to murder our children with second hand smoke. There are no drive-by second-hand smoke attacks. Yet we were able, as a society, to declare: smoking is bad for us, collectively. We don't want our children to start smoking. Stop making toys and children's characters that encourage smoking. In case the opinion of a former English teacher and current mom isn't enough to get you thinking, take a look at this conversation with Harvard researchers who recommend approaching gun control as we did smoking and car safety.


Jonah, who is three and a half, wants a toy gun. I can't remember when he started asking for one in earnest, but it was sometime after his third birthday. Sometime after he asked for and got his Buzz Lightyear toy with the flashing red laser light arm. Sometime after he reluctantly agreed to a haircut and was rewarded with a Woody doll, too. It is to his credit that Joss Whedon created a cowboy toy character with no gun, and that he explicitly emphasized in the first Toy Story movie that Buzz doesn't have a laser: he has a flashing red light. My hat, as usual, is off to Joss.

But it was probably at the Disney store that Jonah became interested in adding Emperor Zurg to his collection. When we drew the line there, his asks became an all-out campaign for a few weeks. But toy guns are just toys, so they don't kill anyone; they're cool, he explained to us quite charmingly. Guns kill, we repeated to him, and guns don't make good toys. Even toy guns. He resorted to making a gun with his fingers. I told him that was his right, to make or build or draw things, that I wouldn't try to stop him,  but I repeated what was becoming our mantra: we don't have guns in our house, even toy guns; guns kill. Guns are not good toys.

I know this is just the beginning. Already, when we visited Poconos, PA for vacation last summer, we were confronted with the rifles mounted on Safari video games at several local "family" restaurants and ice cream/mini-golf places. Play dates are starting in our life, and there are already friends with Emperor Zurgs and older siblings and video games. The years of Sprout and Caillou and our kids needing us to change the channel for them will soon come to an end. I can only hope our message sinks in. We will keep repeating it through every level of video game ask, and every birthday and holiday: guns kill. Guns do not make good toys. We don't have guns in our home.

It is my hope that corporations and retailers like Disney and Toys R Us, businesses that depend on consumption by children, the aisles of which children wander through, marveling at the wonder of toys, will eventually take a stand and declare similar rules: no more guns of any sort. I'm guessing this won't happen very soon, especially given Disney's 2010 decision to begin selling toy wooden guns at their parks again. Maybe I should hope smaller to begin with: I would love to see my supermarket take the cap guns and other toy guns off its shelves. Wherever it starts, I hope it starts soon. Guns do not make good toys. Please stop encouraging guns in my home and in the hands of my children. It's a small step, and needs to be taken in conjunction with stronger and saner gun laws, but until it is taken, I will continue to hold my ground.