Children's violently themed play has long been contentious within educational policy, parenting literature, and the academe, with conflicting views as to its immediate and long-term consequences. Yet, little attention has been given to the way in which the meanings and values attributed to childhood influence these debates. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a Nursery in London, England, this article explores the different ideas about childhood contained within policies of the setting and educators' responses to children's violently themed play. The article draws on the work of the Bakhtinian circle to suggest educators' complex and ambiguous responses to violently themed play need to be understood in relation to broader social contradictions connected to childhood, adult--child social relations, and early childhood education. Bakhtinian theorising is offered as an important resource for opening up meaningful dialogue about contentious issues in early childhood practice, including to taken-for-granted assumptions about childhood and violently themed play.