Everything I Needed To Know About Parenting I Learned From Playing Lego Star Wars
When I bought my son Wii Lego Star Wars for his birthday this spring, it was something of a leap of faith. He'd shown only a passing interest in the films, and his limited attention span didn't really seem to lend itself to the long-term gameplay necessary to navigate oneself through this kind of a thing. That notwithstanding, my hope was that he'd not only learn to enjoy the game and the storyline behind it, but also be able to use the game - and his ability to think and talk about it - as a way to find common ground with his peers.
(That's an autism spectrum thing. Peer-to-peer social relationships can be tough, and even when kids want to talk to their classmates... they may not know how to initiate, or what to say, or how to respond when others talk to them. My kinda-sorta-it'd-be-cool-if-it-worked-out-this-way idea was that Lego Star Wars might provide some kind of contextual framework to help make that happen.)
Anyhow, after about four months of ignoring the game, he finally started paying attention and playing about a month and a half ago. He's now obsessively working his way through it... and, predictably, I'm getting sucked in as well. And as we've stood there, side-by-side in our basement, fucking up stormtroopers and drones, a few parallels between the game and this whole parenting... thing... have popped into my head. May I share my observations? I may? Thank you. You're too kind.
10. During the course of your journey, you're going to pick some things up along the way — and the more you pick up, the better off you'll be. Whether it's the ten bizillion shiny Lego pieces that litter the Lego Star Wars landscape like jewels or the throbbing little hearts you're driven to capture and cradle, treasuring them as your own, it's important to grab everything you can every chance you get. Never, ever miss an opportunity... because you'll never know if or when another one will come along.
9. That said... as often as not, you'll get another chance. And even after you screw up the first (or second... or fifth... or tenth) time, hopefully you'll learn enough from the experience to enable you to actually get it right at some point. Or, even better: you'll learn enough to help someone else get it right.
8. Having friends is a good thing. It's a lot easier to put together some kinda I-don't-know-what-the-hell-it-is-but-apparently-I-need-to-put-it-together Lego contraption in the midst of a firefight when you've got a sidekick (or, y'know, if you yourself are the sidekick) to ninja the hell outta the bad guys. You watch their back, they'll watch yours.
7. Then again, sometimes your friends can be stupid and useless. If and when necessary, take over (and let me add here that I love the Lego functionality that allows you to actually possess other characters like a voudoun loa) and make them do what needs to be done. No hard feelings, but sometimes you've just gotta take care of business.
6. There is no context in which JarJar Binks does not suck. That's not actually a parenting lesson, but it still bears meantioning.
5. It doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl. Either way, you're still fully capable of kicking ass. One of the surprising joys of this game has been the way that my son takes such pleasure in either being or watching me be Princess Leia — every inch a LegoGirl, but taking no prisoners and either blowing away or karate-chopping to hell everything and anything that gets in her/our way. It's a direct contradiction of virtually everything that my daughters' extensive library of Disney Princess DVDs has taught us about the way heroines (and Princesses, especially) are supposed to behave — and, subsequently, a well-deserved thumb in the eye of sex-role stereotyping. You go, girl. (Even if and when the girl in question is, in fact, me.)
4. Play matters. You know that saying, "play is the work of children?" Of course you do, because it's true. Play is a vehicle by which kids create context to help them learn and accomplish all kinds of things. And here's the thing: while I'd picked this up in the hopes that the boy would be able to leverage Star Warring to find some common ground with his peers, it's also helping him find common ground with me. It's something we can have fun doing together, y'know? I remember when I was a kid, desperately begging my parents for an Atari (2600, yo) so that not only could I know what all my friends were talking about when they talked about Space Invaders this and Asteroids that and Pitfall the other thing... but also so that I could maybe get my folks to play with me once in a while and have some fun. Y'know? Fun. Doing something fun onscreen together... breaking out of the authority figure/offspring rut and just having a good time. Never happened, of course, but standing in the basement last night hacking our way through a space station, I had a moment of epiphany: "Oh, I see. It's happening right now." Which wasn't a bad feeling at all.
3. It's a long haul. Seriously. When you look at the journey - start to finish - as a whole, it's kind of daunting. It seems to go on forever, and it feels like you're never gonna reach any kind of real, meaningful end point at which all the effort is worth it. Which is why it's far better to get all Zen/Jedi about it and just live in the moment instead. Don't get all worked up about the fact that it's six movies' worth of storyline and gameplay you've got to work through. Don't worry that you can't see your way clear to the end. Just focus on what you're doing now, try to keep in mind some vague idea about where you're going, and keep pushing forward so you can find out what happens next.
2. Sooner or later, Darth Vader = Dad. No way around it. It was true when we were kids, and it's just as true now that we're the Dads. So when you've gotta put on the black helmet and break up a rebellion... don't fight it. Just go with the moment, and do what's gotta be done.
1. In the end, few things feel more cathartic than smashing the shit out of the world with a light saber.
