Will the children of AFOL's ever have a dark age?

woony2

This is just something I thought about over Christmas as I was watching my 5 year old build his #9491 Geonosion Cannon.
Most of us would have had Lego as a child and then stopped building when we got older or grew up, whichever came first. Then by whatever quirk of fate ended up back into it as a hobby sometime later. I, luckily still had all of my collection from my childhood so I had a good starting point. Others may have lost, given away or sold theirs so would have had to start from scratch. When I emerged from my dark ages in1999 I didn't even own a computer so I was blissfully unaware of LUGs or other collectors, moccers etc.
But now that it is far more common place for adults to collect and build will the current bunch of kids playing happily with their Lego ever stop, especially if their parents collect. And what size will there collections get to if they already have a large starting point that they inherit from us.
At present my son knows that there is Lego in the loft but he is blissfully unaware of just how much is there (as is my wife). And for the moment I'll try and keep it that way as he's a bit young for most of the sets.

CCC

Probably. Some kids of AFOLs don't even like lego. Thankfully not mine.

Even if they do, they can thank their lucky stars that their parents are probably still collecting and buying so that when they come out the other side, they will not have missed too much.

jockosjungle

My Mother gave away my lego when I was 16. I weep still for all the sets that'll never come back, My Pirate Lego Governorws Ship, my Robin Hood Major Oak set, pretty much two largeish sets a year from the time I was 4 until I was 12.

Fortunately I started collecting Harry Potter lego at 18, until the amount of sets released overwhelmed me, but got them out the loft and rebuilt them.

At the moment its a few sets for me and plenty of Duplo for my baby!

mr_benn

It may even be that children of AFOLs are even more prone to a dark age than children of non-AFOLs - part of the not-liking-what-your-parents-like-because-you're-so-independent-and-such-a-unique-individual phase. But I suspect that children of AFOLs may be more likely to return to the hobby than non COAFOLs due to constant exposure to it!

Brickarmor

^My sentiments exactly!

Jenni

^^ I agree too but I think that COAFOLs will have the advantage that they won't feel pressure to put LEGO aside as a childish endeavour.

tedward

I think that "dark age" may be a too absolute a term. I fully expect my 15 year-old who has gone with me to 5 LEGO conventions since he was 10 years old will at some point stop doing LEGO for a while. He will probably still get the occasional LEGO set as a present for Christmas and use LEGO figs to make D&D figures but he will probably stop building and buying his own sets at some point which I will call a "dark age". I think that is healthy and assume he will eventually get back into it, at least with his children if not sooner now that he knows there is an adult community out there.

I think the main difference is that they will always know they can "come back" to LEGO. An advantage that most of us did not have.

wagnerml2

My concern is that my son, who is 9, loves his lego collection, but does not value it like I did when I was a kid. I am 40 and was a child of classic town, Space and Castle. Classic Space was my passion in my youth. I can remember getting the Sears Catalog in July of 1983 and drooling over the #6980 Galaxy Commander. I waited for months to get it for Christmas and then played with it for months after.

I have been out of my dark ages since 2000 and I have amassed a HUGE collection of both bricks and sets. When my son is bored, he imply goes to the basement and grabs a set. He may complete building it or not, but either way, there is not attachment because everything is so readily availalbe to him. Like I said, he loves the hobby, but the wonder that I had when I was young is not there.

richo

Of course they will. They discover the things that distracted us back in the day. Ask a 17 year old lad, or girl, what are the most important things in their life. Not many will say lego.

Si_UKNZ

^ Totally agree. I really hope my kids have a dark age and spent time finding a partner/ travelling the world/ getting qualifications/ going to parties instead.

akunthita

One of the main reasons the previous generation gave up LEGO as teens is because they felt embarrassed to still play with a toy. Parents got concerned, friends teased. However the same feeling is not there for today's teens because of all the websites, forums, blogs, conventions and other events that are now dedicated to LEGO. I have talked with several teens about this, and they feel absolutely no need to give up the hobby. Of course they may still pursue other interests, which is a healthy thing, but they most likely won't have that deep-rooted fear of being considered weird if they still play with LEGO as a teen or adult. But we shall see... (c:

Jenni

^ they can't do that and like LEGO?

LegoFanTexas

akunthita said:

One of the main reasons the previous generation gave up LEGO as teens is because they felt embarrassed to still play with a toy. Parents got concerned, friends teased. However the same feeling is not there for today's teens because of all the websites, forums, blogs, conventions and other events that are now dedicated to LEGO. I have talked with several teens about this, and they feel absolutely no need to give up the hobby. Of course they may still pursue other interests, which is a healthy thing, but they most likely won't have that deep-rooted fear of being considered weird if they still play with LEGO as a teen or adult. But we shall see... (c:

^ This...

The advent of $400 LEGO sets that are really designed for teens/adults, makes it now ok to do this beyond childhood.

If a 16 year old is playing with the current City Police Station, it does look weird. If they are building Fire Brigade and making this with Mindstorms, they are not weird at all:

http://youtu.be/_d0LfkIut2M

y2josh

Based on some of the thoughts here, I suppose I was fortunate enough to be young enough to play with all the "kid's" LEGO and also have "adult" LEGO available to me when I was in my late teens.

But I actually disagree with a lot of the sentiment here, in that I don't think it's requisite that you give up LEGO altogether in order to grow as a person and experience other things. Were that true, logic would dictate that none of us had friends, families or interests outside of LEGO, and I know that's simply not the case (for most of us, at least).

For me, I never had a 'dark age' in the sense that we typically talk about a dark age, but I also wasn't holed up at home with LEGO as my only friend or outlet. This probably had a lot to do with my father, who I think actually got into LEGO because of us kids, but still builds his 'big kid' sets to this day... and he's pushing 60.

So, no... I don't think the children of AFOLs will have a dark age in the traditional sense... but I suppose it may seem that way to those of us that are a little more obsessed than we probably ought to be.

Jenni

^ defining a dark age as less than 30 hours a week building LEGO? :)

dino_girl

My 12 daughter is getting more selective over what sets/ themes she wants these day. Boys have appeared on her radar there is a lad she fancied but it turns out he doesn't like lego so she doesn't like him anymore lol

pd66

^ @dino_girl That is funny - I have a while before my daughter starts fancying lads (at least I hope I have - she is only 3) but I hope she is so discerning when she gets there.

On topic, is it not the old adage of everything in moderation that will prevent a true dark age for this group? (Whether that is LEGO, sports, schoolwork, chasing/being chased by the opposite sex etc)

The stigma not being there will certainly help as well. I remember hitting secondary school (11+) and suddenly realising it wasn't cool to talk about my Star Wars figure collection but that doesn't seem to exist as much, particularly for LEGO. (I was lucky that my parents wouldn't let me sell my old SW or LEGO collection so still have both some 25+ years later)

If my son (nearly 7) or daughter got to the point that in their teens LEGO was their main interest and took up the majority of their time I think I would gently nudge them to regain a little balance across their activities just as we do now with them - it's not all about LEGO or the XBOX etc etc.

Whether our own obsession with the plastic brick will support that nudge is a different question - do as I say not as I do?!

CCC

Attitudes have really changed.

When I was a kid, grown men rarely played computer games. Now a significant proportion of the market is adults.

When I was a kid, grown men rarely played with action men (or GI Joes or whatever you call them in the US). Now many adults have collections of posable display dolls - whether they are LOTR, batman, whatever.

When I was a kid, grown men rarely played lego. Sure they helped kids, but didn't really play with it. Now it is much more acceptable.

People are more in tune to (quality) toys being collectable these days too. We occasionally get rid of our kids toys hen they grow out of them. But never until we check their value on ebay. Back in the day, they would have been sent to a boot sale / jumble sale / charity shop / refuge shelter / the dump with little consideration.

Oldfan

pd66 said:

^ @dino_girl That is funny - I have a while before my daughter starts fancying lads (at least I hope I have - she is only 3)...

I don't know...my 20-month-old already has 3 boyfriends in her daycare! Although this might reflect my wife's cutesy-ness more than reality...

pd66 said:

...If my son (nearly 7) or daughter got to the point that in their teens LEGO was their main interest and took up the majority of their time I think I would gently nudge them to regain a little balance across their activities just as we do now with them - it's not all about LEGO or the XBOX etc etc.

I think this is a sensible attitude and I hope I can teach my kids the same as they grow older.

Yodalicious

For me, it was really organized sports that put me into my first Dark Ages. And then college that did it the second time.

Not that I wanted to seem "cool" by not taking about LEGO, but I just had less time. I could see the same with my son. As he gets older, he'll have more activities to choose from. If that involves LEGO, great. If not, great as well.

I'm only 33 an my knees have already stopped me from organized sports...haha. But I could always come back to LEGO. I want him to enjoy all of those other things while he can!

cheshirecat

I think dark ages is the wrong term - its really more of an enlightened age. Freedom, girls (or boys), alcohol, girls (or boys), parties, girls (or boys), living away from home, girls (or boys), freedom. Then you get married and after a few years LEGO seems relatively fun again. ;)

In all honesty, as said above, if my kids are spending even 2% of their spare time with any kind of LEGO when 16,17 or 18 I'll be surprised and perhaps even a little disappointed.

Are they more or less likely to get rid of their lego than we were? I'd say more, they'll know the value of it and what the can 'swap' it for. The reality is we'll probably all end up buying it from them rather than letting it go on ebay. Where as our parents would have just given it away.

CCC

^ So all that lego I have in my loft for my kids ... I am going to have to buy it all again, second time off them. Maybe I'll keep it for myself rather than giving it to them! :-)

cheshirecat

^ afraid so, all these 50% off sets aren't looking such good value now. Damn.

CapnRex101

I am 17 now and still collect Lego with no dark age in sight, although I will have to tone down my spending for university of course. It is not the main thing in my life, but it is certainly a hobby of mine. In response to some previous comments however I do not feel it has impacted on my life in comparison with other people my age, I do all of the things which others do and Lego does not affect that in the least so I have not missed out on experiencing the teenage years like anybody else. Even teenagers have hobbies and while some might be interested in sport, video games or anything else, I like Lego...

Teenagers and adults are not always so vastly different as some would perhaps like to believe. For instance, despite not being Lego fans themselves, my friends are all more than comfortable with the fact that I collect Lego and are often sorry to have sold off their own collection years previously as I am sure is the case with many AFOLs and their friends. You will have to take my word for it that I am not some kind of social pariah at school. As of yet, nobody has approached me to tell me that I am 'weird' for liking Lego, if they did, they are entitled to their opinion but that is not going to stop me.

I would agree with other comments in so much as that if one was to play with Lego City etc. as a teenager, that would be viewed as a bit odd, but as there are numerous other sets targeted at older buyers, there are plenty of models to buy which are considered perfectly normal to be purchasing at my age.

I am sure any parent here would agree that they would much rather their teenage son or daughter be collecting Lego aged 16-18 than taking drugs, getting into trouble with the law or anything even worse, as is becoming common among others my age.

richo

@CapnRex101,

I know you might be 17, but I think perhaps you are not a great example for this thread given you're a clone?

Rich

CapnRex101

@richo - Well admittedly the growth acceleration means I should be eight and a half, so perhaps it is not so surprising that I am a Lego fan. :P

Actually, I think the only age range where collecting Lego should be discouraged is 0-3 years.

richo

lol, excuse my joke, to be honest, lego still needs teenagers like you, as you are the future!, and some very good reviews you do too.

CCC

CapnRex101 said:

@richo - Well admittedly the growth acceleration means I should be eight and a half, so perhaps it is not so surprising that I am a Lego fan. :P

Actually, I think the only age range where collecting Lego should be discouraged is 0-3 years.

With Primo for the under 1s, and duplo for 1-3 there is no limit. My kids liked primo from the time they could pick them up and bash them together. And they could start putting duplo blocks onto a large baseplate at about their first birthdays (I remember as that is when child 1 got their first duplo set). I think the third one had watched her brothers doing it so much, she could do it before that age.

And my younger kids have never put (little) lego into their mouths, even though the youngest was about 1 when the eldest was allowed to play with his first proper lego in front of her.

I reckon 3 is about a lower age when they can start using it properly (at least stacking basic bricks) even though they were perfectly OK safetywise before that.

Yodalicious

And you have to consider this for the really young kids...

My mother-in-law is an SLD (specific learning disabilities) director in the U.S. school system. She has commented many times on the value of LEGO from an early age. It's one of the most beneficial toys for creative and logical development. So even if it may seem that 3 or under is too young, there are benefits to playing with LEGO from an early age (supervised of course). It's a problem-solving toy that works out a child's thinking process. Colors, shapes, sizes, building, creativity, etc. Never too early...as long as they aren't attempting to eat them of course. As the parent of a currently teething child, anything I handed him would be in his mouth in the blink of an eye. Although he does already love "swooshability"...:).

Si_UKNZ

quattro is great for really young kids.

CapnRex101

Good point, I had forgotten all about Duplo, Quatro and Primo. What I meant (as I am sure you are aware) was the standard Lego just to clear that up. It was really meant as more of a joke anyway! :)

Toymaker

I would speculate the most people's Dark Ages began for 2 reasons:

1. "Embarrassment" at still "playing" with a child's toy
2. Being diverted by other hobbies/sports/girls/boys

Mine was the former - I remember clearly stringing it out for a couple of years into my mid teens and then finally in early 1987, aged about 15, ceremoniously buying 6693 Refuse Collection Truck; building it and then packing a 10 year collection up into the loft.

It all came back down when my son hit 3 in 2009, spurred on by the first Winter Village set. Today, Lego is a universal toy in our house - it's the one thing that we all "play" with (main difference is I also use a toothbrush as part of my "play" !).

I can't see my kids ever growing out of it in the same way as I did.

The only negative observation I have is that the constant ebbing and flowing of themes is a real barrier to any modern kid building a decent collection over their childhood which they can then revisit as adult. Obviously Star Wars is the exception to this, but then the prices act against serious childhood collecting. City is too focused on police/fire to really inspire a 10-year collecting habit amongst any child. My kids love their cops and robbers but they really want a broader variety of stuff to build a city out of rather than this year's representation of martial law.

jockosjungle

My baby loved Duplo from about six months old, we found some in in laws loft and he upturned the box. All he could do at that age was smash the bricks together or have me build a small T for Thomas or a tower and knock it down. He's now 15 months and has a lot of sets, a huge crate of bigs and loads of animals.

I think the issue is there is a bit of a dead space between building police stations to play with and building collectable models to display for teenagers. Although I think the Batman range, Star Wars and LOTR does help with this.

Brickarmor

@Toymaker Very well stated, especially the verdict on City. My 6 soon to be 7 year old has a hodgepodge of themes, but he's fine with that now. I do see his urge for "completeness" emerging, however, but it stretches the imagination (not a bad thing!) to build a "City" with Mars, Atlantis, Ninjago, Alpha Team, Dino...

As for his potential Dark Age, it wouldn't really be all that different from my 17 year old's total indifference to literature, politics, "thinking" in general... :-) Okay, maybe it would be a little different. Just reiterates the adolescent "do opposite of thy parents" mentality. So it goes.

Bosstone100

I bought my son some Primo stuff and it really helped him with his dexterity. He has been upgraded to Duplo but only for the larger pieces. Those 2x2 bricks must taste pretty good. He'll get the rest soon.

Also have a ton of Duplo sets waiting for him in storage. Since he was too young for most toys anyway on his first Xmas, I just told everyone to buy him Duplo sets. Lucky kid! :-)

wagnerml2

The interesting thing that I see is my 9 year old being much more interested in playing with the finished product, but not as interested in the building part of it. He is huge into Star Wars and steals some of my other themes from time to time. While he may modify vehicle's (my #10144 Sandcrawler currently is on the dining room table with 6 laser cannons attached to the top), he really doesn't just build. while I think that the sets and details are so much better than they were 20 years ago, the complex nature of the bricks and specialized pieces in the new lego pallet do not inspire his imagination as much as it seems I was at his age. The lack of diversity among the bricks in the 80's allowed much more imagination for the young builder and wan't as reliable on technique. Not that it is bad, it's just different

Don;t get me wrong, he loves lego (partially because I love lego), but once he gets beyond the playing part of the hobby, it will be interesting to see if he maintains his interest. I hope so!

Jenni

^ I've found that I need to buy separate bricks for my 8-year-old to MOC. She doesn't tend to take her sets apart. Give her PAB cups and my disassembled sets and the house gets filled with interesting things, especially if I've finished a MOC recently as she'll make her own version.

kor

I think I've said it before, but I've never really been ashamed about playing with LEGO. When I was a senior in high school my girlfriend at the time bought me the large castle that was out at the time. She has two large bins of bricks that we used to build some cool stuff with.

My firend and I used to skip school and go to TRU and Childrens Palace to wonder the LEGO isles. We even bought a handful of Castle sets on several occasions. Yes, we were rebels!

I hope my kids are the same way. Well, not the "skipping school" part but I hope they don't feel shamed out of doing something they love.

CapnRex101

@Jenni - I think that not taking sets apart is becoming a bit of a trend among younger Lego fans now. I know I for one have only very rarely taken apart a set, and always with the intention of rebuilding it as soon as I have the parts I want. It is apparent that when many AFOLs played with Lego as children, they were much more willing to break up sets and build their own models, but I suppose the sets released then were usually much less specific in making one thing, but made as parts packs for your own creations.

Jenni

^ I wonder. I can't remember taking apart my classic space sets to MOC.

I've been thinking about this off and on since it started. When Friends came out they talked about how the majority of girls build so that they can play out stories with the end product. Watching mine and her friends this is amply supported.

As an AFOL I'm not interested in playing, swooshability is irrelevant, it's about working out how to build something. I think my dark age happened when I no longer wanted to play space exploration but didn't know that there was anything else to do with LEGO.

Therefore our kids having a dark age may be less to do embarrassment or hormones and more to do with whether they can transition to another way of enjoying LEGO.

Of course they're all different.

Yodalicious

^^Agreed. I "played" with LEGO in the 1980s and I took everything apart. Even my favorite sets. Built them, took them apart, built something else, took apart again, built the original set, and on and on.

cheshirecat

^ me too, but i had a lot less stuff in general than my kids now have. board games but no sibling that wanted to play them with me, an intellivision, scalextric and my lego was about it. lego was either castle or space and the parts were simple and mostly non specific. without wanting to sound old, sets today are better but less eadily reused. which is probably exactly what lego want.

CCC

^ Sounds similar to me. Lego was used a lot to make buildings / grandstands for our scalextric track, or stations for the train track which we had on the other side of the board is was screwed to. We had an intellivision too - now that was a real console system with proper games. I remember tag teaming with my brother on a game of astrosmash one weekend. We started friday evening and we had to turn it off sunday night as we had school on monday.

richo

Kids have way more these days. I relentlessly rebuilt all my space bases in to different creations back in the 80s. I had lego, Star Wars figs, some Britains soldiers (I seem to remember a german running with a briefcase) and a couple of board games, and was very happy with my lot.

Yodalicious

cheshirecat said:

^ me too, but i had a lot less stuff in general than my kids now have. board games but no sibling that wanted to play them with me, an intellivision, scalextric and my lego was about it. lego was either castle or space and the parts were simple and mostly non specific. without wanting to sound old, sets today are better but less eadily reused. which is probably exactly what lego want.

That was basically me as well. No siblings. Which for LEGO isn't necessarily a bad thing. I could sit for hours building by myself. Whereas I would get tired of destroying the CPU in Bases Loaded.

CapnRex101

^ Interesting point there actually, I have no siblings either. Is this is a very common thing among Lego fans or just chance? I suppose Lego is a toy which one can play alone unlike a board game or the like. That might explain its popularity among only children.

Yodalicious

^I would imagine it's just by chance, but when I was younger I got bored with other toys that really needed a second person. With LEGO, I could entertain myself for hours and hours. My parents loved it because it kept me relatively quiet (and I'm a talker).

To me, that's also the building aspect. I could play with GI Joe, but then I had to be Joe and Cobra. With LEGO, the building could be done solo and it was no problem. There was no building with the other toys, so it got to the conclusion quicker (which was always Cobra winning...they had the cooler guys anyway!).

jockosjungle

I used to love looking at the sets in the Argos catalogue as a kid, and trying to recreate the sets with my own pieces. The racing cars worked well, except they were driven by spacemen

wagnerml2

I have 2 siblings. My brother and I both built in the late 70's and 80's. I was Space and Castle and he was town and never the twain did meet. If I needed some of his town pieces for an MOC, they had to be stolen under cloak of darkness. We would fight over pieces to build model that were pictured in the old #6000 Idea Book. Good times!

aimlesspursuits

I've got a younger brother and we both built during the 80s. I mainly focused on space and he focused on castle/city. I'm out of my Dark Ages but my brother is still in a Dark Age (which I don't see ending). Both of our kids play with LEGO. My son's collection has already eclipsed my childhood collection.

I'm guessing that my son will go through a Dark Age just because we have so many LEGOs/toys/electronics in the house. I don't think he appreciates the LEGOs the way I did in my youth. I guess we'll see as he's only 5 right now.

monkeyhanger

Oldest of five! Having fewer toys back then meant making allsorts with the Lego sets I had. I didn't have discrete sets I kept whole, I had containers of Lego I used to make things out of. When I got a new set, it was that set for a week or 2, then it topped up the communal pile. Lego was a lot more creative back then. I think as kids we had less, and were less distracted by TV and videogames (no dedicated kids channels back then, kids programs were on before school and a few hours after - more time to fill pkaying with the toys we had.