In celebration of Mothers Day and the many AFOLs who became mothers or mothers who discovered LEGO through their children, we present this guest post from our own Kimberly Giffen.

The day arrives when the oldest child receives her first LEGO set, and the time for endless hours of building with your children has come. As a family with an AFOL mother and four kids, so many hours have been spent on building. We build together, they move on to something else, and I continue building.

There is joy in the process. Watching as my oldest leans into the storytelling aspect of LEGO while one of the twins blows my mind with his part usage. The progression of helping with sets to watching them finish advanced builds all on their own.

We have learned together. They would give me build requests. Mom, can you build a house, a school, a waterfall castle, a Rapunzel tower, the Parthenon (thanks Percy Jackson phase!)… The list goes on. We built, the collection grew, what we were capable of creating grew as well. All three boys had to share a room for years because this family needed a LEGO space.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that there were groups of adults who played with LEGO but it wasn’t until 2020 that I joined the community. Being the primary care giver of children is often a hurdle to attending LUG meetings and conventions, but I make it work. I appreciate the weekends away and yet I desire to pull my boys away from their video games and share this community with them. This past year I did just that, took my oldest son to his first convention as a TFOL (teen fan of LEGO). The plan we would build collaborative MOC together.

First order of business — figuring out what to build.  I was partial to pirates but he was set on building a map of Hyrule based of Breath of the Wild. Ultimately, I wanted him to choose because whatever we built would need to hold his interest.

Dividing the tasks went fairly well for us mainly because we picked a topic where he knew everything about this game and world while I had the build expertise. I was able to give him tasks like putting the base together and filling in areas while I jumped on the layout of where the main features were located. He was often able to offer insight as to what needed to be included and the scale of things. Coloring of various regions was something he took the lead on researching. It took longer than either of us expected because carving out time to work together can be a challenge.

Attending a convention with my kid worked out mainly because we were able to stay with family. I had the option to leave him at home Saturday and still participate in the late-night events. And at the show, I had an extra pair of hands to help out with unloading our display and packing it back up. It was quality time for both of us. My teen was able to meet and network with those outside his peer group. I got to see him light up when connecting with the fans of our creation. And I’ll never forget the surprise on his face when we won a theme award for microscale. I felt a real sense of pride in having a teen who was respectful and curious while attending an event that is primarily adults. A year later, he is excited to attend more LEGO events with me. Next time, though, he’s on the hook for building his own MOC. Now his two younger brothers are eagerly awaiting their opportunity to attend.

I continue to build with my children, even slipping an occasional set to the 19 -year-old in her dark age. It excites me to see the direction of their creations. They have the advantage of having a parent who can show them techniques to try and the a collection of parts to let them try things out on their own. I have started giving my kids books on microscale and architecture. They have access to digital building at a young age. I look forward to the teen years and seeing just how far LEGO will take them. To all the parents out there, enjoy these times!