As A Free Man has made reference to my theory on 'boys and sticks', I have pasted in an old entry from my bebo blog of yore.
You may remember my comments on the testosterone laden issue of young boys and sticks? To recap briefly, I am constantly amazed by the predisposition of young boys to absent mindedly pick up sticks and hit things with them, almost without seeming to know they are doing it!!! Objects for 'hitting' include trees, bushes, flowers, balls, walls, other sticks, other boys.........oh and any residue of campfire ashes within a 1km radius. It is uncanny how they find them! But I digress.
Here is evidence which confronted Himself and I as we mooned over the lovely ghost gum in our front yard recently.
Initially we thought the multiple lacerations to the trunk were caused by koalas as we had just been observing one in a neighbouring tree. Then we decided the shape of the indentation was too square to be made by something natural.
After a little close questioning it transpired that the two boys (Small Boy and his friend Two Doors Up) had taken rasps out of Dad's tool box to carve some knives (of course) and proceeded to 'hit the tree' with them, again!!!!!!! You know, sticks, rasps, whatever....
When queried they were unable to give any explanation as to why they had damaged the tree. Simple answer I believe...testosterone!!! They don't even know they're doing these things!
And also in reference to A Free Man's post, we had friends who withheld any weapon like toys from their little toddling lads. They never allowed them to watch videos with violence or fighting in them (only Postman Pat, Thomas the Tank Engine...you know the kind of thing) and yet, when at the age of two the boys were taken for a walk in the New Forest, they instinctively picked up sticks and began 'sword fighting' with them.
It's definitely in the genes.
5 comments:
You're dead right about the genetics. But, I have been teaching Zach a bit of fencing. Looking forward to seeing you guys this weekend and meeting your kind folks!
Ug. You are making me dread my future. Stop it lady! :)
that's mental. sticks and hitting things... like scratching an itch?
So true!
Know someone who never let ANY sort of toy weapon in her home at all. Don't you know, the toddler boy picks up the Barbie doll by the head - points the legs at his sister and starts dueling!
It's in the genes!
Elisa
I have a lot of broken lamps and things to attest to this. There was a time when Grayson had broken every wooden spoon in my kitchen by drumming with them, and he was just two years old! I don't know what the obsession is.
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