Lego

Also you don't ned more and more and more. Some kids, especialy ones with limited income, will be more than happy with a handful of legos and will build whatever they canbuild with just those few. My children have bout 20 legos. they were giving them out with a certain childrens meal ( ) a while back and they love them but since they are a choking hazard (not to mention a hazard to my feet) I have refused to buy more. My kids, while embarrased to have only baby legos, are not asking for more and asking to be given away so thay can be with someone who can afford legos :LOL

*****Kids get hooked to toys and want more and more and then what? Do the poor mothers have money to buy more? Can you imagine a poor mother already with low self-esteem, giving her child away because she can't give the child no Lego - a good life. *****

according to that logic, no parent should buy thier children any toys unless they have the money to completely indulge every little obsession. It doesn't have to be an everything or nothing world. you can say to your child "you have enough" or maybe "you can play with those at school, what do you need them here for", and my person favorite "no, now be thankful you got to play with them a while and go outside and play".

My best friend got most of her son's Legos secondhand, by the bucketful. Way too many IMO, but he's not my kid.

If I can't buy DD every doll I should get her any?

DS at 13 still uses his Legos to build things HE creates from his imagination. The theme item might be built once, but after that blocks are blocks and infinitely useful for his creations.

You don't have to wonder where Lego gives its money. Like every other company that makes donations, they do it in order to improve their image.
On this page on their website they have a cursory list of to whom they donate money and to whom they donate product. They also brag on their site about their corporate ethics. They are proud to have been the first corporation to join a UN business ethics project called Global Compact. I don't know what that means, but it sounds like they are serious about doing what they think is right. Here is their Code of Conduct--it sounds like they anticipate these questions and have taken steps to cover their butts about them.

Now, how can you verify what they say about themselves? If their company foundation was in the US, I would know how to answer that, because all US charities have to file IRS 990 forms and those are available at Guidestar.org. But of course Lego is in Denmark, and I am not familiar with their tax laws or how they deal with annual reports. There is an annual report online at the Lego website, but it is in Danish! They mainly work with major, well-known charities like Save the Children, so you can check those out.

I can't say that I agree with your logic about donating money to organizations that "promote schooling", nor your idea about why not to give toys to children in orphanages or other institutions. But on that theory, you really shouldn't buy toys from any company. Most toy companies donate to charities related to children. I know, I was a grant writer for an organization that served homeless children and I wrote proposals to toy companies! If you are afraid that giving money or toys to charitable organizations may somehow promote values with which you disagree, then I think you should make your own toys.

Oh, another thing, just for you Leonor: the British magazine Ethical Consumer did a write-up of Lego. (Lego bragged about that, on their site, too.) You can get a copy of Ethical Consumer and find out whether they meet your standards that way. Here is the website for Ethical Consumer:

www.ethicalconsumer.org

Let me be a little more clear than I was in my last post.

You just slammed Lego because they donate money and product to charity. I am amazed that you did that in the first place. This is a company that donates money to schools in the Third World--which you don't like because it "promotes schooling." Whatever. I mean, I prefer to buy from companies that donate to local charities.

Then you asserted that it was a bad thing for Lego to donate toys to orphanages because mothers would put their children in orphanages because at least in the orphanage, the child would have Legos.

What? come on!

Then, you asserted that Lego "probably" exploits its labor. Well, that's not an unreasonable thing to say about a multinational, in particular, a multinational that makes plastic toys. But you didn't look it up!

Maybe it makes sense to actually look things up before you assert them.

Know what I hate about legos?

It seems to me when I was a kid you got a LOT more "big" pieces (like the 8-24 little peg things) than you do now. Sure, its a bucked of 1000 pieces, but like 500 of them are the little two peg kind, KWIM?

I like legos, love duplos---- PLEASE don't tell me anything bad about them. I'm already boycotting just about everything I can handle

I agree with this:

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I think you should do what feels right to you, but your logic isn't going to appeal to many people. In the wide range of "bad" things companies can do, these are barely registering with me. Orphanages and schools rely on donations for their survival. If you are against orphanages and schools, that's fine. I don't think most people are. Of course homeschooling mamas don't want THEIR kids in orphanages or schools (and non-homeschooling mamas don't WANT their kids to be in orphanages), but does that mean that those kids shouldn't have toys to play with or books to read, because their parents made (or were forced to make) a different choice than you did?

L.

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"What, come on" what? Do you know what goes on those mothers minds from your comfortable seat in America? Why do you think mothers give their children away? Isn't it because they think they can't provide them a good life?

Come on, natural mothers! Here we are promoting ideas that were found in poor primitive culture cultures around the world. We found out we don't need doctors for our births, bottles for our babies, disposable diapers - or diapers at all! - that they need no cribs. Even that children need no schooling, and actually do better at home! (I'm not saying every AP mother does the whole package, but I do agree with the whole package).

And then we think it's good mothers in the Third World are shamed to think they don't have enough?

Are we going to sit and say that building schools in the poor countries is a good thing? Mothers having to work 12 hours shifts on minimal wage and leave in daycare is a good thing?

Oh yeah, there is Lego in their daycare now, they only have to be happy about it. RIGHT?

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I didn't find anything so far, I was wondering if someone knew. What's wrong with asking, so many mothers know so much about companies. You're not telling me just to trust their company policy. Nike also has pretty words in their website I bet!

Yes, maybe I should make my child's toys, but can I compete with giant corportations Lego?

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I hardly think it is because they can't provide toys.
Food, clothing, shelter, stability all probably come first.
Of course, I could be way off and there could be incredibly materialistic parents in the world, who would give gleefully hand their children over to complete strangers, happy to know that they can play with all the latest and greatest legos.

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No.
I parent naturally. I do what feels right to me.
I do not co-sleep, cloth diaper,EC, carry my baby close to me, breast-feed, homeschool, etc because some primative : culture does.
I do it because it makes me feel closer to my babe and it WORKS for me.
I did these things LONG before I ever HEARD of mothering magazine or this website.

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ACK

Yes, They DO need schooling. Just not a standard one-size-fits-all schooling.
Some learn best through child-directed unschooling. Some learn best through parent-led discussions and projects. Some learn best with textbooks and workbooks.
But they all need a guiding hand.

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I personally think that learning can only be a good thing. A person who can read and write, even if only taught by reading pro-capitialism drivel is still a person who can read and write. And they can move on to teach others. And they can read and write nationalist/resistance works.

Mothers having to work 12 hours shifts on minimal wage and leave in daycare is a good thing?[\quote]
nope. But I don't think Lego is at the head of this. I look more towards all the politicans for that one.

I guess this to me is like arguing that people go to prison for the free-education/training they receive there.

Do I resent that I had to pay for college (or worse yet, that some bank is maling THOUSANDS of dollars off of the interest on my loans because i couldn't afford school)? YES. But I would never take that away from inmates.
Do people return to prison because life on the streets is harder? Sometimes, to be sure. But that is a different thread, I just wanted to cover that before it got brought up.

I would never deprive those who need something, just because it is a luxury in my life, since those needs have been met in other ways.

Lauren

Click to expand...

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Okay, you are right--I don't know what mothers in another country are thinking. Do you have special insight into this you would like to share?

I do know that where I last worked, we served teen moms, including some mothers in their early teens, and they did not give their children up for adoption. We served homeless moms, and they did not give their children up for adoption. If people under that kind of duress were still parenting, what makes you think that some lovely plastic toys would sway mothers in a poor country?

And, in any case, if they were swayed to give up their children because they could have Legos in the orphanage : why make Lego responsible? You sound like the Dickens character Mr. Gradgrind, who thought that poor children shouldn't have nice things because it would make them unaccustomed to their station.

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I must not be a natural mother, because I didn't realize that natural parenting required skipping blithely back to 19th century Romanticism, Rousseau, the Noble Savage, and all that.

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I absolutely think building schools in poor countries is a good thing, and furthermore, I see absolutely zero connection between mothers having to work long shifts on low wages and children going to school. (I am standing up, however. )

Indeed, studies have shown that there is a very strong connection between female literacy rates in particular and the birth rate and poverty levels in countries. (I was going to post a link to a study, but there were so many that I couldn't pick one! You can go to the UN Human Development FAQ page for a basic run down about how statisticians are thinking about this right now.)

Also, I thought Lego was giving actual money to Save the Children to set up schools. At least, that's what it says at their corporate website. They aren't giving Legos, they are giving krøner. So if you want to really know what they are giving their money for, you need to research Save the Children Denmark. They are making donations to NGOs whose reputations they think will be good for their company. This is typical corporate behavior, by the way--corporations make donations they think will reflect well on them.

Now, my guess is that the history behind these corporate charitable and ethical moves is that Lego got burnt by contracting cheap labor overseas at some point, and that in their native Denmark they got bad publicity. That's a reason why they would have a whole page about how they monitor their manufacturers and also a reason why they would be donating money to international charities. But I don't read Danish and I don't know which newspapers online to check about this.

Also, whether they have a history of doing the wrong thing or not, they seem to be doing the right thing now. Which is important!

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See, this is totally irrelevant but it does push many rhetorical buttons at once.

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There is nothing at all wrong with asking. I don't like your ideological assumptions, but I do appreciate the concern that you express that your child's toys shouldn't profit unethical projects or be produced by child labor.

Seriously, if you are concerned, go read the Ethical Consumer report. I bet you can a copy of it at your public library, as you live in the country where it's published. Then you will have a responsible 3rd party evaluation of Lego's corporate ethics.

We are a Lego house. Our son has some of the same blocks his dad played with when he was a child and at least two bins full of his own. His friend Isaac has an entire kiddie swimming pool filled with blocks and parts. Legos are awesome tools that fuel a child's creativity, enhance manual dexterity, and teach many other things. I am glad the Lego is using its power to promote education. Even if part of what they donate is toys, how is that a bad thing? A toy could be the thing that gives that child some hope or that inspires him or her. It could even make them temporarily forget their situation.

No one forces anyone to purchase these toys. It is up to parents to send messages of responsibility to their children that they can't always get a new toy. .

And everything that Captain Optimism said.

We love Legos and I say to them donating them to needy organizations.