Before my daughter tells you herself...
When the Sparklets were little tiny ones, I had some basic rules, which I detail here..

1) I don't hold with kids having toy guns, so my two never had them
My elder Sparklet Joined the Air Cadets at 13, and can, amongst other things, strip an SA80 down, clean it, re-assemble and fire in less time than it takes me to send a text. Her brother is a mad keen online first person shoot-em-up fan.

2) I don't hold with those nasty cheap TV programmes-cum-toy adverts that litter kids TV.
Herself, with her first term's student loan spent untold money on a huge Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers snap together killing machine thingy whilst drunk, from Ebay..

So I tried to be a helicopter parent, but I was a bit half arsed at it...
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Thu 10 Sep 2009, 20:23, 8 replies)

The guns thing
happened to me. No toy guns at all. At 14 I joined the cadets and can probably still take apart a cadet GP rifle blindfolded and put it back together in well under a minute. Oh and point the thing and shoot someone with it after if they gave us bullets.

I always found it odd that my mum went on and on about violent computer games, but wasn't at all worried about the learning to kill people in real life stuff . . .
(Foxinsockssir, Thu 10 Sep 2009, 22:28, closed)

And I'm the same with the second one.
My parents wouldn't let me watch or even buy the Power Ranger figures. So I brought them myself.

Although it took me a lot longer to realise that...
...
and I wasn't drunk.
(Dante licked your nipple on, Thu 10 Sep 2009, 23:37, closed)

Guns thing happened to me
My parents didn't think I should have toy guns.. also my grandma saw some bad shit during the war + didn't want reminding of it, so when she came to live with us no guns were allowed, and definitely no WW2 guns.

I now have 5 deactivated WW2 era guns & am applying for a Firearms Certificate to legally own a WW2 rifle.

Prohibition never works, people!
( Schweaty Minge I spunked in your tea! Taste it and see! D:, Fri 11 Sep 2009, 3:36, closed)

I forbid prohibition!
That ebay purchase made me laugh, was it megazord by any chance? A friend of mine did something very similar...
(Puddle of Sugar was still wallpapering on, Fri 11 Sep 2009, 8:41, closed)

It Was!
Indeed a Megazord! And surprisingly well made, actually..
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Sun 13 Sep 2009, 19:04, closed)

Made up for it later in life
Definitely weird that when you miss out on something in your childhood you tend to go overboard later on.

I was always keen on Transformers, but my parents only ever bought me the cheapy shit ones, whilst my friends had all the ace ones.

I now have a series of them in mint condition still boxed, collecting dust on my shelf. Christ knows what I'm going to do with them, I don't want to sell them as they're what I always wanted when I was a kid, but to be honest at my age I'm not exactly going to start playing with them, and I don't want to pass them to my kids as they'll just trash them.
( flapmeister knows where your mum lives, Fri 11 Sep 2009, 10:42, closed)

Same here with the cadet thing
No toy guns, completely banned. One time my gran bought me a pirate playset which included two shiny silver plastic flintlocks. Straight back to the shop as soon as mum saw it :(

Roll on 13, joined the cadets and can probably still strip an L98GP in about a minute. That said, its not exactly hard, the ones our squadron got had a tendency to fall apart without much poking. They let us fire these....

On the plus side, they taught me and licensed me to fly :D
(Fleximus Rex briefly gave up lurking on, Fri 11 Sep 2009, 15:52, closed)

Gah
Our local ATC was pants. Rarely got to shoot the guns and never once got to fly. Waste of time. I now have several guns and a pilots license by my own efforts.
(Richy_T hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 3:30, closed)