Choices

 



 

Owen's Lego Guys

      Sarah's top Santa request for Christmas 2011 was for girl lego characters.  She said that all of her legos sets came with way too many boys and not nearly enough girls.  A quick look at Owen's lego stash confirmed that the guy to girl ratio in Legoland is seriously tilted toward the male end of the spectrum.  His collection included ninjas, storm troopers, soldiers, and even wookies - but I couldn't find a single girl in the bunch. Imagine my surprise (after Santa spent weeks searching for girl legos) to find out the week after Christmas that Lego was going to introduce a whole new line of Legos aimed squarely at the girl demographic. Now, imagine my continued surprise to find out that parents were outraged about this new line of Legos that was pandering to girls.  Where, oh where, do I begin with this?




"Lego Sets with Boobs"

First, these parents who are outraged over legos? What's that line of discussion about first world problems?  If you have time to be outraged over a line if legos marketed for girls then you've got lots of time on your hands (see photo, left).  Second, as a parent who's raising children in a state where our legislators are introducing legislation with tag lines like "don't say  gay" (unless you're calling out your gay classmates as sinners and fornicators because that's considered freedom of religion, not bullying,  so in that case you can say  "gay" all you want too) - well, that's a reason for some parental outrage.*  But back to the Legos.  Frankly, as the mother of a son to whom Lego has been pandering to for years (see Star Wars, Ninjago, Hero Factory, and Bionicle Lego lines) I'm thrilled that Lego has wised up and developed a Friends line that panders appeals to my daughter.  And may I say bravo Lego makers for expanding your repertoire and realizing that my daughter's allowance/Christmas dollars have the same value and buying power as my son's allowance/Christmas dollars.  As for the Friends legos themselves, I think they're great.  Do they include cafes and salons and hairbows and lipstick? Yes, yes they do. Do I worry that playing with Lego lipstick and hairbows will influence my daughter to grow up to be a vapid brainless looks-obsessed woman?  Not really, at least not anymore than I worry that playing with all those Star Wars legos will influence my son to grow up to become a Sith Lord (although his love of the dark side does trouble me - in what universe is Darth Vader the hero?).  In an effort to tie all of this together, I'm going to end with a line written by F. Scott Fitzgerald that I first read when I was in college being indoctrinated with all kinds of liberal ideas.  According to Mr. Fitzgerald, "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."  I'm trying to raise my children in an environment where this is possible (the holding of two opposing ideas and functioning) so they will grow up learning to respect and value the choices of others, especially when they don't agree with them.



Sarah & her Harry Potter Legos

 

Friends Cafe
 

Friends Legos on the Hogwarts Train

Legos are little miracle workers at our house.
They bridge the gender gap, the age gap and the sibling gap.

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* How troubling that there are two pieces of legisation being considered in my state that, if passed,  effectively silence a student from saying "Hey, I'm gay," while protecting a student from being considered a bully for  saying "Hey, you're gay and you're going to hell."