KATIE ALLISON GRANJU is a freelance writer (a book on parenting for Simon & Schuster, and articles for everything from Salon to Hipmama to Cooking Light) and she now has a weblog, too. She’s also written a terrific essay on why she lets her kids play with guns. Excerpt:

They’re toys made of plastic, wood, and metal. Some shoot caps, some shoot clothespins, and one shoots ping pong balls. Of course, lots of them squirt water. But they still look like guns and are played with as weaponry by the boys who race around my yard making shooting noises and ducking behind trees.

There was a time, at the beginning of my parenting journey nine years ago, when I would have shuddered at the thought of this scene playing itself out at our house. While still pregnant with my now nine year old son, Henry, I announced to anyone who would listen that my child would never engage in violent play with toy weapons. With the perfect confidence born of never having actually parented a child myself, I lectured friends and relatives on the dangers to society of raising boys on a diet of toy guns, swords, and soldiers. My comeuppance began almost immediately.

Read the whole thing; it’s very good.