A Boy's Rite of Passage

Our house has been a (toy) weapon-free house for 5 years. Sure the boys have fashioned swords and guns from Tinkertoys, Legos, sticks and peanut-butter sandwiches...but we had not allowed a store-bought toy weapon to enter our house. (We had often joked that our make-your-own toy weapon policy was helping to shape future Unibombers.)

Well, we finally caved. We let the boys pick out lightsabers (as bribery for getting haircuts). (I had also wanted to wait several more years before they saw Star Wars but I lost that battle a couple of months ago.)

Taking Jack to the store to pick get his new most prized possession truly felt like a rite of passage. This was a huge monumental moment in his young life...not only his first toy weapon but also...a lightsaber! He was the envy of every guy under 45 in the store. They all looked at him with a goofy grin seemingly fondly remembering when they were bought their first lightsaber and wishing they were young enough to make it acceptable to still play with it.

While in the store, Jack kept sneaking glances at me hardly believing that I was actually going to purchase a weapon for him. In between anxious glances at me, he looked lovingly at his new blue lightsaber.