The Love and Loathing of Legos

When I was growing up, most girls had Barbies.

First you bought the doll. Then, you had to buy her clothes and accessories and a car and a house and a Ken. Personally, I was never into Barbie. The one I did get, I melted. On purpose. But that’s another story for another day. I saved my folks a lot of money by disliking Barbie.

Now, it seems this same marketing model has been applied toward little boys. It’s not good enough to have a Kung-Zhu Battle Hamster. You have to also buy its armor and a $50 plastic arena for the battle hamsters to battle in (though technically, a Tupperware PieStackable would also work). Yes. Battle hamsters. I wish I were making this up.

Except that it isn’t just the Battle Hamsters right now. It’s also Beyblades, a mash-up of metal tops and anime. And Lego’s latest answer to that, the NinjaGo series, starring a series of mini Lego ninjas that spin around and attack each other in a game that includes cards and is so convoluted, they have a lengthy FAQ page on their site explaining everything the instructions are unclear about. Each of these series has its tie-in with cartoons, collector cards and video games, meaning there will be no end to the new stuff you’re expected to buy.

The NinjaGo critters are really very cute, but I have a serious love-hate relationship with Legos. They hurt like hell to step on and are not bio-degradable, but they do espouse a lot of creativity in kids. Some say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I say the roads of the future will have to be paved with discarded Legos.

You know that last week was the , the week in which all three of my children’s birthdays occur. The birthday cards have been received, emptied and tallied. Now, we’ve got three kids with birthday money burning holes in their pockets. My daughter is sensibly saving hers. My older son chose to go clothes shopping anyway, despite our suggesting he doesn’t need to spend his own money on clothes. It’s the little guy who’s driving us nuts about the money thing.

We have tried explaining the marketing ploy involved with Battle Hamsters, Beyblades and the NinjaGo. It’s never, “just a hamster” or “just a top.” Each piece adds up. And each piece can be lost, broken, buried by a beagle, permanently stuck in the machinery of the washing machine, or flushed down the toilet by an angry sibling. The child, now seven, is undeterred and insistent that every other child in his class has a NinjaGo and they all play NinjaGo during recess (a dubious claim considering last I checked, toys are verboten at school).

I want him to begin understanding financial math and how much things cost. I want him to be able to buy something he wants with the money his relatives gave him for his birthday. I do not want him spending it on plastic crap that will get lost and stepped on, or that will lead to the purchase of more plastic crap. It’s a financial question, an environmental question (PVC, anyone?), and it’s a good old-fashioned battle of wills.

I do have a friend who admitted that she has, in the past, deliberately torn the head off a Lego character and secretly thrown it away so she could tell her child, “Oh, it’s lost, too bad, guess you can’t use that anymore.” Ingenious? Perhaps. Fiendish? Definitely. But I’d rather avoid buying the darned things in the first place. Am I the only one who notices the really nasty odor of plastic toys lately?

My husband took the boy shopping over the weekend, before we’d had the chance to discuss my misgivings, and they did come home with NinjaGo sets. The child is very proud and happy and cute in his enthusiasm, but I’m not sure how I feel about the whole thing.

It seems that for now, any battle of wills around here will have to be solved by dueling plastic Lego mini-ninjas, which I really don’t want to step on.