I have identified the first three phases in indoctrinating your kids into all things Star Wars.
Phase 1: By exposing them to images and music, make them aware that there is something called “Star Wars” — and that it is cool.
Phase 2: Start teaching them names and relationships between various characters in Star Wars. My son knew what an “AT-AT” and a Stormtrooper were before he was 2 years old from a couple of t-shirts I have.
Phase 3: Slowly give them some toys of their own so that they can get excited about their own collection and begin fantasy play, even if they haven’t seen the movies.
Recently my son got a big addition to his (small but growing) Star Wars collection that he was very excited about. I took this cheezy picture for a Facebook post and captioned it “Operation: Indoctrination (phase 3) – complete.”
- his small (but growing) collection. After all, I can’t dump EVERYTHING I’ve saved over the years on him all at once. The poor kid isn’t even 3 yet.
In relation to that picture, last night I had a rather profound Dork-Dad moment. I spent the entire frusterating evening at the car dealership trying to pick up our recent acquisition from a week ago — and was utterly defeated. Since the dealership was 40 miles away I missed dinner, bathtime and ni-nights (bad Daddy). I finally made it home to a wonderful surprise; one I’m sure I will come home to countless times over the years. The toys you see so neatly posed together in that photo were strewn EVERYWHERE throughout the house. Clearly they had been played with to the max that day. When I saw my wife and asked how the kids went down she said, “The boy didn’t want to go to sleep. He was too busy playing Star Wars.”
Alternative quotes:
“Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.” – Emperor Palpatine, RotJ
“Everything is going as planned.” – Darth Sidious, AotC
or even:
“Things are now in motion that cannot be undone.” – Gandalf, RotK
I just found your blog and it’s pure gold. If I didn’t know better I would have thought I wrote this. I actually had to start at the top, meaning my wife. For y 2.5 year old son’s room she told me, “I think we should do a Star Wars room”. A few days later she told me I may have gone a bit “overboard”. As you put it, “Operation Indoctrination”.