Silly Daddy, Submissive Mommy
The traditional family values of Peppa Pig
My daughter started watching TV when I became pregnant with my second. H instantly took a liking to Peppa Pig. I too liked the show because it is simple and rooted in reality - Peppa learns how to set up a scarecrow in the garden, or she learns about composting. She practices recycling, or plays the different instruments at school. She takes a ballet lesson. The show also isn’t scary, and it doesn’t feature any kind of recurring evil figure / antagonist (say, Mayor Humdinger from Paw Patrol). It is about handling life situations and feelings - about wanting to learn to whistle, but handling the disappointment that one’s lips don’t work that way. So it is appropriate, even educational, for a two year old.
Peppa Pig, for those of you who don’t know, is a show about a girl pig, Peppa, who lives with her mum, dad, and baby brother. Her father is a mathematician who works in an office, her mother is a writer who works from home, and her baby brother cries a lot (he doesn’t yet speak).
Sound familiar? Well, my husband is a mathematician, I am the writer, and we have our two kids: big sister and baby brother. What a lovely coincidence, I thought. But then, maybe it was because of this coincidence, because I saw some version of myself in that Mommy Pig figure that some elements of the show started to grate on me. (Note, the resemblance lies in our jobs, rather than our family dynamics.)
Daddy Pig, for one, is always the one to have ideas, to initiate projects. He treats his wife kindly, but also a bit like an assistant. Time to make bubbles? “Mommy Pig, please go fetch the soap and bucket of water!” “Yes, Daddy Pig!” she replies cheerfully.
Daddy Pig is also getting lost all the time. His navigational skills are, to use the Britishism, shite. Mommy Pig will second guess his directions, but then Daddy says, “I know where we are! No worries, Mummy!” And then Mommy Pig’s smile returns to her simple face and she repeats her confident and happy: “Yes, Daddy Pig!” Sometimes the entire family will pipe up in a chorus response all together: “Yes, Daddy Pig!!” They ride in their car until Daddy Pig gets them incredibly lost; they have their misadventure; they get back on track; they exclaim: “Silly Daddy!” and then fall in a heap on the ground laughing uncontrollably. Roll credits. Mommy Pig never drives.
She never takes the wheel, so to speak. She also never loses her temper. She never says “I told you so, Daddy Pig.”
H and Daddy Pig
Mommy Pig is accomplished, talented, and strong. She wins the top prize in the strongman game at the carnival; she speaks fluent French. She writes - with George sitting on her lap! She is patient and kind with the incurably “silly” daddy. She is, basically an angel, a superwoman. The one thing that makes her somewhat believable is that she has her parents helping with childcare on occasion. She drops the kids off at grannie and grampie’s house. Peppa and George are put in Madame Gazelle’s day care. She has some degree of help.
If the show Peppa Pig reflected reality, I think there would be more episodes like this: Daddy Pig handling the children for a full day and then realizing how much he should appreciate Mommy Pig; Mommy Pig losing her temper when Daddy Pig forgets to bring the picnic basket for the Nth time; Daddy Pig going for a medical check when he realizes that he is incapable of remembering the route from any point A to any point B in his neighborhood; Mommy Pig saying “Why don’t you go and get the bloody bubbles yourself?”
Peppa Pig in lockdown Shanghai, in the building across from ours
I understand that for toddlers there is pleasure and comfort in repetition. Daddy will get lost; Daddy will get even more lost; they will encounter challenge; they will overcome challenge. But entertainment can be insidious. Is my daughter learning, through repeated viewings, to blindly follow the patriarchy? Are we raising a generation of girls to put up quietly and cheerfully with bad (male) leadership?
We’ve moved away from Peppa Pig these days. My daughter, now three, naturally got tired of the pedestrian porcine adventures. She’s now all about Dora the Explorer, an audience-participation show (“count with me!”) with long episodes and multiple challenges. It’s a show about a young girl going on adventures with her pet monkey, mostly to find lost things, or to help lost animals get back home.
If H needs to watch a show about a family, I’d much prefer Barbapapa to Peppa. Parents Barbapapa and Barbamama have seven kids who play independently and happily with one another. The parents are loving and hands off. When Mom and Dad do show up, they are nearly always together, a parental team, a partnership of loving equals. The kids will be dancing at a party and Barbapapa and Barbamama are slow dancing and smooching in a corner. Barbapapa and Barbamama go on a date to celebrate their anniversary, so the kids handle cooking dinner by themselves at home. Here is another depiction of parenting, one that I can get behind: parents carving out time for themselves, keeping the romance alive.
Our family looks a lot like Peppa’s family on the outside, but I hope what my little piggies are seeing - and what me and Mr. Daddy Pig try to achieve - is something more like the love and affection, the equality and respect between the Barba parents. Amorphous, shape-shifting magical creatures, the Barbapapas. A fantasy, but worth modeling.