I’ve been
breaking some of my own rules this holiday.
We’ve spent far too little time outside and far too much time sitting
within arm’s reach of the holiday treats.
I blame the weather. Our magnificent
four-storm week eventually gave way to a deluge of rain and wind that
neutralized any thoughts of snow forts or squirrel tracks.
Still,
indoor play presents no shortage of opportunities to hang out with your kids
and to have them teach you a thing or two about what’s wrong with the
world. This Christmas, I bought my son
his first Meccano set. Even though he
has a fascination for mechanics and construction sets, at just a few weeks
short of five, he’s really far too young for this toy. I admit shamelessly that I bought it as much
for me as I did for him. Yesterday, we
finally tore into the box and spilled a marvelous pile of metal rods, nuts, and
bolts onto the deep pile rug. And then,
yes, quickly realized what a bad idea this was and spent the next 15 minutes
retrieving the tiny bits from a wooly forest of carpet camouflage. I was surprised by the visceral nostalgic tug
of some of the classic pieces – the red steel pentagons, the beautifully
designed wrench – and slightly chagrined by the amount of plastic in the newer
sets.
Reflexively,
I unwrapped the instruction manual, admired the beautifully designed graphic
directions for everything from sorting the parts to using the tools, and then
set about following the detailed eleven step instruction set for building a
very cool helicopter. As soon as I’d
finished counting out the right number of nuts and nylon washers, a wayward Boy
Wonder leg kicked my little part collection across the room. Trying not to register annoyance (we’re here
to have fun, after all), I retrieved a handful of nuts from the carpet (amazing
how much smaller these things seemed than the last time I’d handled them a few
decades ago) and started over again. I
think I’d gotten through the first two steps, carefully measuring bolt size and
counting holes to ensure everything would fit together correctly, when I
noticed Boy beside me, happily singing a song of his own invention, putting
together some kind of strange insectoid creature with randomly chosen
parts. I urged him back to the regularly
scheduled program. “MacLaughlin! We’re building a helicopter here! Hand me the wrench!” but to no avail. He soon finished his metal and plastic
bug-eyed monster, handed it to me, and wandered off. I sat on the carpet by myself, surrounded by
parts, instructions, and half-formed helicopter rotors feeling mildly irritated
that he wasn’t “growing up” fast enough to play with me properly.
Slowly (I
blame a surfeit of eggnog and candy cane martinis for my lack of wit), I
understood how we’d parted ways. I’m not
sure whether Meccano sets have always included these little instruction books,
but I’m pretty sure that, as a kid, I never used them. The whole joy of a construction set is that
it presents infinite possibility in a package with almost no rules at all. Even my father, who used to imagine so many
practical uses for Meccano sets that there were often more of the pieces in his
toolbox than there were in my toybox, had understood this. In my house, Meccano held together
countertops, fixed plumbing attachments, and held up pictures. I suppose it was the British version of
Canadian duct tape.
Now,
Meccano sets are marketed not by the number of pieces they contain, but by the
number of different “things” that can be built with them. As if, in a child’s hands, that could
possibly be a countable set. Lego sets now
seem designed in much the same way.
Along with the fantastic multi-purpose bricks, there are custom molded
Harry Potter, Sponge Bob, or Star Wars pieces.
I suspect that these look-alike pieces have much to do with the
attraction of kids to the sets, but little to do with how they are used once
out of the box. Like my son, children
seem to tap their creative juices to build interesting little gadgets in a
freely flowing and constantly regenerating interplay between the materials and
the contents of their imaginations. If
it is true that art predates language, then a mound of construction pieces in
the hands of an engaged child shows us how that magic might have worked. A good construction toy, with its pre-formed
sizes, shapes, and connections, gives a few basic affordances to the child,
like an artist’s palette of colours, but it doesn’t burden him with too many
rules. The instruction booklets are for
adults. The goofy commercial tie-ins may
draw the eye, but they are quickly cast aside as one-dimensional and useless.
At this
time of year, we often find ourselves looking back at the past, assessing our
records while at the same time leaning forward into the future, trying to guess
what will happen next. This year, for
many of us, neither of these seasonal activities may be comfortable. Our collective pasts are riddled with tragic
errors and, as a result, our futures are uncertain, perhaps even bleak. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out that
finding the way forward will require that a few of those old instruction
booklets get tossed. The world is far
more complicated than a Meccano set or a Lego toy, but in a child’s hands this
means freedoms gained and not lost. Why not
for the grown-ups too?
