Lego for girls and 'bring back beautiful'

[rlhoban]

Hi there

I'm tiptoeing in as I'm new to the boards, but was just on the Lego Facebook page where lots of parents are getting upset about the new Lego sets for girls. I thought "I bet the guys on mumsnet will have an opinion or two on this". I've done a search and couldn't find it being discussed already so thought i'd start a thread.

Lots of people cross with Lego for falling into line with the whole 'girls can only cope with pink, purple and cupcake shops' thing. A few lone voices telling them to get over themselves.

I'm with team 'bring back beautiful' (coming from a 1981 LEGO advert with a girl in jeans proudly holding up her creation. My 4yo has lots of pink stuff in her life, but not LEGO, please. I hate the message this sends out.

What do you think?

Rosa x

Lego box

I'm sure there is loads of second hand Lego on ebay.

The lego shops do pick and pix bricks or buy a lego creative pack (just plain bricks, wheels and windows)

Yes I've bought boxes of just windows or just roof tiles.

I just showed my daughter and she likes it, and I see nothing wrong with buying it for her if she wanted it. It's not harming her or anyone else. She is a very active and sporty girl, more used to wearing trainers and climbing trees but she does love to dress up in what she calls 'girly' dresses and tutu's and I have no problem with that at all.

The big yellow teapot is now PINK?

They dont make the big yellow teapot anymore as it was a 80's toy. Wilkos do a cheap version of it in pink and disney do a pink or blue version.

But the original big yellow teapot is gone forever.

Theres some scary anti liberals on the Lego Facebook page

Bandofmothers exactly what I want my kids want, but with a big book of suggestions, my eldest (like me) loves following instructions and tweeking them as he goes along.

My brother and I had space Lego and 'ordinary' lego, the sort with houses, trees, flowers etc, and we used to play equally with both, but the implication was definitely that the space lego was 'his' and the other stuff was 'mine'.

I was mock-horrified recently when he said to my nephews 'Isn't it a pity Granny got rid of the space lego and only kept the boring lego?' - I said 'Err excuse me, that was MY lego, there was nothing boring about it!'

My favourite things were the snack bar and fire engine. I also used to love making gardens using green bases with all the trees and flowers I had. Looking forward to playing with it with my DD when she is old enough, but I think I'll avoid the hot tub, thanks all the same...

You can get just boxes of Lego! I know because I've bought them recently! The other thing is even if you do buy a branded set it all ends up being amalgamated in to the general box of Lego bits anyway.

here is the full range. I think Lego are trying to appeal to girls, but are also trying not to make it completely stereotyped by having a character who is an inventor. Massive fail on the 'hot tube' though. They really didn't need to add that.

I mean hot tub