Lego my Head-o

Posted by Dad…

O.k., we’re back and back onto toys.

Let’s talk about Duplos, Legos, Blox and Stax, and other Seussonian Clix and Clax, (alright, it’s early, so no more rhyming meter games for this Mr. Lorax).

Lets talk about linking toys that promote Frankenstonian development in the most benign way (So they say!).

Zoe’s first birthday went very well, (the whole Pinata thing notwithstanding) and she made out like a bandit in the toy and clothing arenas.

Most notable and fun for mom was this activity table with giant Lego-like pieces. “Here baby, this is a block. Pop a head on it and now it is a cat. Rip the head off and pop another head on and it is now a train engineer!”

Well, Zoe likes to chew on the cat head, but what message are we sending the youth of today when we encourage them into anthropomorphizing lifeless blocks into vital cogs of our workforce (train engineers) and then randomly replace their heads with those of simple household pets?

What really happens when little Casey finally gets that dream job as a head engineer at Amtrak? How will society react when he has a flashback to his days as a one year old and starts pretending to be a puppy?

Do we excuse his reckless behavior and the millions of dollars in damage he causes by running his real-life train into another head-on in a Ritalin-less induced-Autistic-like flashback? OR, do we condemn his alcoholic, post-traumatic stress-like reaction, toss him in jail and sue his neglectful arse back to preskool?

Well, poor Casey, I don’t think that the play-induced cognitive developmental channel you followed as a child was pursued by enough children-who-really-did-grow-up-to-be-train-engineers to file a class action lawsuit, but there is a glimmer of hope that you could sue China and some toy companies for all the lead-laced plastic you sucked on as a child! If that doesn’t work, maybe you can go after big Pharma for the inoculations and maintenance drugs you have been on since birth…

Lesson learned? Toys+play=behaviors. Behaviors+(Need to blame)=lawsuits. Lawsuits+(consumer watchdog groups)=(change to toy manufacturing)

There you go – one entire economic engine foodchain built by playing with Legos. Hey, we didn’t even get into the whole body-image issue created when chubby babies learn that snapping a head onto a small building block makes the toy look much more svelte than when the head is on a large block! well, we’ll save that and the inevitable trans gender issues for another post.

Anyone interested in a slightly used Lego Pinata?