Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Gender Neutral Lego

How cool is this old Lego ad from 1981? I mean, this was me and my Legos when I was a kid. Just building, building building. I even had the pigtails!



As we were shopping for Legos for Xmas this last year, I noticed some new Lego options that certainly didn't exist when I was a kid: pink and purple block sets. Blech. There even seem to be sets specifically geared toward little girls. But I don't even want to know.

The cool thing about Legos was that they surpassed any gender designation in my mind. Both my brother and I loved them and played with them equally. I may have tended more toward the city set whereas he favored the space and castle sets. But I made my fair share of winged fighters…I remember my best friend's brother built a remote controlled Lego car and it WAS THE COOLEST THING I HAD EVER, EVER SEEN. EVER. Maybe still is.

We have been playing with the Legos a lot lately. Harper building great modern towers and flying ships. Windham stacking blocks for what might only be described as some sort of Lego rod for which to hold in the air while he grunts, "Erch, Uch." This from the boy who chose silver, sparkley Mary Janes for his footwear yesterday.

There will be no pink and purple Legos in our house. I want to pass along the same gender neutrality to my kids that this ad reflects and that I felt as a kid sitting for hours, sifting, searching and creating.

Long live the Lego, in all its gender neutral glory.

1 comment:

MaddyT1971 said...

YUP. Totally agree.

Ah, I miss making huge fighter jets and space ships out of legos!