Why I’m Raising Violent 4 Year-Olds

A reader sent along an objection to my mention that I took my two 4 year-old sons to see the new Star Wars movie. The reader is upset because the Star Wars film is “way too violent for children.” Now, I did check out the Star Wars film first. I would not take my children to see Kill Bill or The Silence of the Lambs for instance (nor would I see them myself).

Nonetheless, this is the second movie my children have ever seen in their lives. One was a tender, touching Christmas movie about a little boy who discovers that Christmas is all about believing in the miracles within. The second was a cartoonishly violent movie in which men go face-to-face with evil aliens; often chopping off limbs in the heat of battle. As I think about my film choices for my children, I will admit that I repent....of taking them to the Christmas film.

This is because of my overall philosophy of childrearing. I am aiming to raise up violent sons.

I am not seeking to raise sons who are violent in the amoral, pagan sense of contemporary teenagers playing Grand Theft Auto video games or carjacking motorists. I want them to be more violent than that.

I want them to understand that the Christian life is not a Hallmark Channel version of baptized sentimentality. Instead, it is a cosmic battle between an evil dragon and the child of the woman, an ancient warfare that now includes all who belong to the Child of the Promise (Rev 12). I want them to forgive their enemies, not because they are good boys, but because they understand that vengeance against the Serpent comes not from their hand, but from that of the anointed Warrior-King (Rev 19), whose blood-soaked garments don’t often transfer to the imagery of a Precious Moments wall-hanging. And I want them to exercise self-control of their passions, not because it is polite, but because they are called to struggle against the Evil One, even to the point of cutting off their own limbs rather than succumb to devices.

The Star Wars movie offered the opportunity to talk through these issues of cosmic struggle with my boys. And to place such themes in context of what they already know from the most blessedly violent bedtime stories they hear every day: the Holy Scriptures.