New LEGO Set Includes Stay-At-Home-Dad Figure, Reflecting Reality Of Modern Families

LEGO’s new minifigures depicting a stay-at-home dad and working mom aim to reflect modern families.

LEGO has unveiled a new set of minifigures that includes a stay-at-home dad and a mom wearing “work” clothing. It’s a big step toward being more inclusive and acknowledging the fact that many families in this modern age have stay-at-home dads. It’s about time our kids have toys that reflect that reality.

Fortune magazine reports that among many other recent innovations, LEGO has created this new play set with the modern family in mind. The company says the minifigures “mirror the world we live in today.” Soren Torp Laursen, president of LEGO Systems, adds, “We aren’t responding to demand from anyone. We are trying to portray the world around us and listen to our consumer base.”

The set is adorable with a dad in casual clothes pushing a stroller and a mom in business-casual attire holding a bottle. For so many families in 2016, this is how things look. And it’s amazing to see LEGO paying attention.

After getting mixed reviews with their LEGO Friends line, which was introduced to appeal to girls, the company is seemingly trying its best to listen to their customers and create toys that reflect the world we live in.

When children play, they’re using toys and their imagination to explore what they know about their environment. If a child only ever sees moms portrayed as the caregivers in their play sets it might be more difficult to explain that in 2016, lots of dads do that too. And of course, children with a stay-at-home dad will identify with a play set that mirrors their family life and what they know about the roles a dad and mom play.

The fact is, we live in a time where more and more dads are choosing to stay at home with their kids. Fortune cites Pew research indicating that the number of stay-at-home dads nearly doubled between 1989 and 2010 with an estimated 2.2 million dads at home with their children in lieu of a career outside the home.

That’s a significant number and reflective of the many societal changes that have brought us to this point. Women are now just as educated as men (or, more so) and wanting to use their degrees and men are finding it more socially acceptable to admit that they actually want to be at home with their kids. A role that in prior generations, was almost exclusively held by mothers.

Just like we want representation for girls and for their toys to reflect the many roles a woman can play in both career and society, we want the same for boys. Actually, it benefits both boys and girls to see play sets showing a dad as the primary caregiver as this increases acceptance across the board.

Bottom line, it’s a wonderful thing that LEGO is changing with the times and making sure their toys show the world as it is. Not as it was.