Yesterday Oliver and I watched the coverage of Remembrance Sunday on TV. At school there had been some discussion about it and Oliver had come home last week to make an announcement. “I had some bad news I had to tell my friends,” he told me. Intrigued, I asked him about it, and it turned out that he had to tell his friends that Steve’s granddad had been killed in the war. This is news to Steve, and we have no idea where Olly got his information from, but when the coverage began, I decided to watch it with him.

The first thing Olly wanted to know, as soon as he heard mention of the Queen, was where the Queen Mother was. He had watched the funeral with Steve’s parents and he talks about her whenever death is mentioned (i.e. when I’m doing the garden and we have to clear away dead plants – spot the green fingers). Anyway he concluded that she wouldn’t be in attendance as she was dead, so she had sent the Queen instead. I did my best to explain why we remember the soldiers who fought and died in the war, and remarkably he even observed the two minutes silence. After that he lost interest and we did some painting. I felt pleased that we had tackled a sensitive piece of history together, and that he had gained some sort of understanding.

That was of course until Olly appeared in the doorway of the kitchen wearing only his pants and a soldier’s helmet, brandishing a gun. He then charged through the kitchen hollering and whooping and jabbed me in the side with his rifle butt. Billie cowered under the table as he raged around; then he rushed back out again heading towards the sitting room, presumably to go and terrify the sofa. I sat there dazed, cuddling Bill and examined where I had got to with my little boy.

I have always felt that it was pointless not to allow Olly guns and swords on the forbidden fruit basis. I also felt that given the right context and with plenty of intervention and education on my part, the guns and swords would assume the same importance as everything else he possesses. That is, played with occasionally and then usurped by something else. But sadly, and no doubt obviously to the more discerning of you, this has not happened. They are nearly always his first option when wishing to make a point (I won’t bath, clean my teeth, go to bed, get dressed, eat my tea, accept that toy is Billie’s etc) and are brandished with such relish and expertise that it has become very upsetting.

So where do I go from here? Am I to assume that had I kept Olly shielded from these weapons he would not be leaping about like a member of the SAS frightening all the rest of the good citizens of this house? Or is it the case that you can’t fight nature, and even if he didn’t have access to this armory he’d still find something to fight with? I err towards the second thought myself, having witnessed Olly put a potato masher to alarmingly good use. But the fact remains that I have a little testosterone-charged boy who dashes about in his pants firing guns at us without any idea of what he is representing. And I worry about my part in all this - that I have encouraged this behaviour. Most of my male friends tell me that they had guns and loved them, and none of them are sporting camouflage gear, showing an unhealthy interest in gun magazines or looking like candidates for Jerry Springer, so maybe Olly with be okay.

It’s just that as he and Billie grow so the gender divide becomes more and more apparent. Billie just doesn’t seem to want to roar at regular intervals like a dinosaur, nor to throw herself off the sofa to demonstrate her agility or to regularly smash my saucepan lids together. When Olly has male friends over, the games revolve around space, dinosaurs or cars. However when his girl friends come round there is an increasing conflict, with Olly often upset that they are playing with Bill’s toys and not enthusing over his latest space ship construction.

I guess it’s just the next step on our journey, and as a woman it’s so interesting to be in at the beginning of male development. I just hope and pray that I give him the best chance I can to be the best that he can.

Juliet Jones lives in domestic chaos with husband Steve, son Oliver (aged 4) and daughter Billie (aged 2 and a half) in Hertfordshire.

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