In one episode, “Daddy’s Big Tummy” is the password to Peppa’s treehouse hideaway, which Daddy can’t even fit inside.Įach episode ostensibly replicates a situation our kids might recognize, like going to a playgroup or bringing home a pet fish, but something always irks me (an impressive feat considering each episode is only five minutes long). With the sexist, body-shaming nonsense the characters regularly grunt out, I don’t want to leave my kids alone with Peppa for a moment. Peppa Pig fails on all three fronts for me. I believe that TV has many uses in a parent’s life: it’s entertainment, it’s education and, if I’m being completely candid, it’s also a babysitter.
Each child in turn has relentlessly, passionately, campaigned to make our lives more porcine-friendly, begging for costumes, toys, theater trips, and books featuring Peppa and all of her friends. All it took was that initial five-minute high of animated bliss - turned on in a moment of desperation on a chaotic afternoon - and they were hooked. She and her pals have been foisted on me over the years, first by well-meaning English friends who gave me hand-me-down stuffed pigs and Peppa houses, cars, and puzzles, and then by every one of my sweet toddlers. While I like to think my parenting is governed by choice and free will, Peppa’s takeover of my life doesn’t feel entirely voluntary. grr!” from the pages of books, and quite literally speaking to me as I stumble over squeaking Peppa-themed toys, which all seem to have infinite battery life. In the 11 years that I’ve been raising my four daughters as an American living in the U.K., she and her family and friends have been everywhere: oinking at me from the television, shrieking “Dinosaur. I can’t remember ever parenting without Peppa Pig by my side.