(A report from my son and Lego maniac GeekTeen John.) Last month saw the release of Hero Factory Recon, a subtheme of the popular “Design byME” service on the Lego website. Design byME is a way for kids and model-builders to design a set on their computer and be able to buy the parts and instructions directly from Lego. The new Hero Recon program is the same, but focuses on building new characters for the Hero Factory action figure line.This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. to report an issue. I tested out Hero Recon for a while, and it’s a fun site. You are able to create and share as many custom Heroes as you want with the option to buy any of them at any time. It’s easy to use, even for young kids. The skeleton of the Hero is already complete; only tools and armor have to be added. There are five stages of building a Hero, with each stage requiring you to put on the next part in order to continue. It’s a simple process and it’s fun to make dozens of Heroes to put in the gallery.
For collectors, there’s also an exclusive silver and black chest piece (see my custom Hero) to make your action figure even more cool. I have a couple of complaints about Hero Recon from a builder’s point of view. If you are looking to design a Hero from the ground up, the site will not allow you to alter the skeleton. However, Design byME has been updated with new parts from the latest Hero Factory sets, allowing builders to make a Hero Factory model there without the limitations you encounter going through the Hero Recon site. Another problem is that only parts from last winter’s wave of sets are currently available in Hero Recon. Hopefully, when new sets are released in the summer more will be added. One of the big advantages of ordering your custom Hero through Hero Recon is that you can create a figure at a fixed price. The Hero Recon costs $12.99; depending on what parts you choose, building a similar figure through Design byME could run you much more. Also, when you order one of your custom creations through Hero Recon, the site lets you choose stats for your character, such as strength and intelligence.
They’re included in the custom instruction printout that comes with your set. Once I bought and paid for my custom figure online, getting it in the mail took a week or two. In person, the Hero Recon set I received was very impressive. The new building system for the Hero theme works very well, and is fun to use. Hero Recon parts are completely interchangeable with Hero Factory sets you find in stores. When it comes to designing your own character in the Hero Factory Universe, I think Hero Recon is better suited for kids. Serious builders will find more enjoyment using Design byME. Here’s the problem men have today: They understand how bad it feels to be raised by a dad who is never around. There’s a generation of boys who didn’t eat dinner with their dad. Only saw their dad on the weekend. Changed schools five times so their dad could relocate to get the best job, over and over again. Those boys are grown up now, and they are dads. And they don’t want to be like their dad.
They want something different. We have unrealistic expectations for fathers. So more men are leaving the workforce than ever before. But when men stay home, they are largely disrespected as incompetent breadwinners. And the men who choose work all the time are largely disrespected as incompetent parents. If they try to do a little of both, they are not particular standouts in either. (I’m struck by the art world’s depiction of this problem. For example, Nathan Sawaya‘s sculpture pictured above, and a comic strip from Zen Pencils that depicts the problem.) Men were raised to be standouts. But no one told them that most good jobs require long hours and high risk which are choices most people don’t want to take. The other challenge to being a standout breadwinner is that you almost always need a big city. Most people imagine themselves raising their kids in a metropolitan area. But the truth is that it costs a lot of money. NYC, SF and LA require $150K/year in order to raise two kids in a middle-class life.
Some people will disagree with me, but none of those disagreeing will have two kids over the age of six in one of those cities. This is true in the suburbs of places like Boston or Chicago as well. Sure, there are cheap suburbs, but there are not good schools in cheap suburbs. Most men will not make enough money to afford living in the right kind of metropolitan area. The number of men who will make $150K after the age of 35 is tiny. First of all, if you want to be making $150K after 40 you need to be making it at age 35. Which means you need to be clearing $100K at age 30. (And places like Singapore, Tokyo, and Bermuda don’t count. Because you won’t be able to make that much back in the US. Your market is artificially inflated.) We have unrealistic expectations for husbands. So let’s say you are 35 and you’re ready to get married. You have a three choices: 1. You earn enough to support a family in a metropolitan area. (You need to reliably earn $150K for the next 15 years – unlikely.)
2. You split household labor because you are splitting breadwinner duties. (This typically goes very poorly because women are never happy with the division. 3. You move to a small town where your career is limited but the cost of living is low. (Negotiate this before you get married.) The problem is that men don’t like to hear that these are their choices. So men pretend that their salary will continue to rise in their 30s at the same pace it rose in their 20s. But that approach fails because most women want to stay home with kids. But let’s say that’s not true for you. Let’s say you want two high-powered careers. You’ll need tons of childcare. Which means you’ll need to spend almost all your money on childcare. And your wife will struggle to maintain her pre-baby salary because she can’t stop thinking about kids when she’s at work. So you will be very stretched for cash. And stressed, and that’s not great because having a baby kills a marriage anyway, even without the added stress from neither spouse focusing on the baby.
(This is why only 9% of mothers even attempt having a high-powered career.) Now let’s say you have two scaled-back careers. Here’s the problem with that: It’s nearly impossible for people over 40 maintain employment with scaled-back careers. You can’t compete with someone in their early 30s who is going full throttle. They have the same experience as you but more ambition. Here’s the biggest minefield: Men don’t like when their wives earn more than they do, and women don’t like outearning their husbands either. You can say you and your spouse are different, but the odds would be stacked against you. Because even if one of you is different, it would be really unlikely that both of you are different. There is not a contemporary template that works for most men. Here’s the bottom line for men: Few will be big earners. And few will be able to stay home with kids. The midlife crisis for men is that they are sandwiched between social expectations that they be involved as fathers on one side, and the financial pressures from a disappearing middle class on the other.