Are you stumped for what to get your little one for Christmas? How about the Roman Gladiator Arena, complete with lions and gladiators fighting to the death?
A parenting forum I visit regularly has a discussion about whether this is any different from pirate ships, but I dunno–I think the whole gladiator thing ONLY celebrates violence and death, whereas pirates can be understood to be cool and find buried treasure and say “Arr!” and go sailing. There’s also a sense of freedom in a pirate ship. Plus, pirates weren’t killing for entertainment. It was good old-fashioned greed.
Dear Santa: I love Playmobil, but please skip this one. I’d prefer the coal. Love, Jane
There is a lot to be said on behalf of pirates. To become one, a person had to know about astronomy, geography, trigonometry, and geometry (in order to navigate). He had to know complicated rope work. A coworker told me that climbers (and pirates) use something like a chain stitch to store rope so that it can be fed out in a controlled fashion, no kinks and no knots. That’s pretty clever. These people scrambled, barefoot, up a wet, swaying masts a hundred feet in the air. Sailors of that age, regardless of the flag under which they sailed, were highly skilled and by necessity highly intelligent.