"Confused About Reality"

My family and I just recently had a confrontation with "political correctness." It would be funny if it were not so ridiculous. All we wanted to do was get my son's senior portrait made. We liked the studio. They had done some work for us in the past. My wife made the appointment. Then, last week she and my son made the trip about 30 minutes up the road to get the photos made.

Like most teenagers, he is proud of his accomplishments. He is a black belt, a weight lifter, and he has won some awards in speech and debate tournaments. So he wants to take those mementoes of his life and arrange them in the picture. Sounds great. But my son is also a bow-hunter, and he likes to play "air-soft" with a lot of his teenage pals. Bowhunting with his compound bow is an honored past-time and a useful occupation. But, just to be on the safe side, I told him to leave his razor sharp arrows at home. "Air-soft" is a new thing--kids have these toy guns with orange tips, and they shoot very soft pellets (you still need to wear eye protection). None of us thought there would be a problem with bringing an obvious toy gun to a photo shoot.

There was. My wife called me and told me that they refused to take the pictures because of his bow (no arrows there!) and his air soft gun. My wife spoke politely but firmly with the management, but they were firm: no "weapons" in the pictures. It might frighten the children in the waiting room. This is a "family friendly" studio, after all.

I got the direct phone to the owner of this chain of portrait studios. I told him I fail to understand how a TOY with an ORANGE TIP on it is a problem. "It might frighten the small children who would not understand the difference between that and the real thing." I responded, "Kinda like the management and owner? Isn't that the responsibility of the parents to explain to their children the difference between reality and a TOY? How is the parents' failure to teach their own children MY responsibility? Why and am I--and MY family--being punished for the failure of other people to distinguish between a TOY that cannot hurt anyone, and reality?"

He didn't get it. The bow could also hurt someone, the owner said. How? Without arrows? My clenched fist could also hurt someone, so I can't have a clenched fist in a photo? Baseball bats can certainly hurt someone, but that doesn't stop kids from being photographed with their baseball bats. . . I ended the conversation with the owner, explaining to him that I do not deal with people who cannot distinguish between reality and a toy. He's free to set up his own rules for his business. . . and I am free (still) to take my money elsewhere.

However, it really left me sad. How is it that a bow, and an imitatiton gun, are not considered "family friendly?" Why do people continue to promote the "sissification" of America--classifying these items as evil and unwelcome? It was only a few years ago that young boys were expected to be familiar with bows and guns in order to hunt and protect their families. What are we teaching our sons?