The Trouble With Legos

I recently learned that the Lego toy company has introduced a controversial line of pink and purple lego pieces with female characters specifically designed for little girls.  As a father who has lived with Legos for years, I don’t really know what to think about this without getting into trouble.

As most parents know, the ubiquitous Lego toy brick is the fundamental gene of all Lego creation. It is a small, hard cube with a female receptacle on one face and a male part just opposite. The Lego bio-chemistry enables children adept in genetic engineering to create colorful Lego life forms that often resemble White Castle Restaurants. It also encourages the insidious bricks to mate and reproduce faster than sex-starved gerbils on Spring Break in Cancun. 

Like many families, we have indulged serious Lego population explosions in our house.  The genetic building blocks are everywhere. But the kids love them.  To this day, it is not unusual for my children to be absorbed hours on end constructing elaborate Lego sculptures that will a day later lay in ruins on the floor.  They never tire in their labors, and their imagination is boundless.  And my daughter builds contentedly right alongside her brothers.

But I remember several years ago my son yelling excitedly to me from the basement, “Dad, Dad.  Come see what I built!”  I expected to see a retooled Ninja Transformer or a Star Wars Battle Tricycle.  Instead, he had constructed a three-foot high mausoleum, completely enclosed on all sides with neatly arranged rows of white, green and red bricks.  Except for the in-layed pieces that spelled out “R.I.P.” across the front, the structure resembled the Florence Duomo.

My son was beaming.  “I call it Amantalado!” he exclaimed.  I was amazed at the creation, and I couldn’t believe that he was able to build something so elaborately massive in such a short amount of time. “Did your sister help you build this?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied.  “She is inside!”

I guess now, with the newly introduced Legos for girls, she could lock him deep within the dungeon of a pink and purple Lego Princess castle of her own creation. 

Like I said, I don’t really know what to think about this without getting into trouble.