Stop complaining about Peppa Pig, and try being a better Mama or Papa Pig yourself

The cartoon series Peppa Pig has been around for over a decade now, however, many parents haven’t had a chance to attentively watch what their children are consuming on TV daily.

Thanks to the continuing lockdown, parents are now watching TV with their children and they seem to be reevaluating what their kids are consuming.

A followed a commentary on Twitter where black parents vented about how Peppa Pig has turned their kids to become aggressive bambinos. The parents who were commenting on that tweet continued to label the cartoon show all bad names you can think of.

However, there were black parents who speak vernacular at home who were praising Peppa Pig for improving their children’s English vocabulary so significantly.

The discontentment expressed about Peppa Pig reminded me of my own reflections on Dragon Ball Z (DBZ). The main hero of the animation series is Goku. We all wanted to be a Goku in our real lives. However, in my contentions as one of the many young black men that watched DBZ, Goku was not even half a resemblance of the realities of our village lives. He was spoilt and got everything on a silver platter.

The biggest disappoint in Goku was realising that he was a father who wasn’t active in his children’s lives. Worse, he had two sons, who didn’t have a father figure to model what being a good man was.

When I look back, that is the biggest flaw about a cartoon series I grew up watching. It’s for obvious reasons, the issue of fatherlessness is very close to my heart.

I digress.

My three-year-old niece loves Peppa Pig. In a village where speaking English is a sign of great early childhood development, a lot of people are in awe of her amazing command of the Queen’s language. She has only spent three months at creche and that had to be short-lived due to Covid-19. So, we cannot attribute her growth in assertion, command of a second language and general knowledge to preschool.

Contrary to popular belief, the main contributor to her overall growth and development is the famous pig family she watches on TV.

We have watched it with her. Even though many parents are complaining that their little ones are screaming at them and calling them ‘disgusting’, the little one at home would only refer to food she doesn’t enjoy.

Furthermore, I have realised that many black parents don’t nurture assertiveness in their children. They mistake assertiveness to being disrespectful. They also don’t want children to be conscious about what is right or wrong early.

And when you further analyse the Peppa Pig family, you realise that there is a camaraderie in the family. And as black families, we should encourage such companionships with our children as elders. It shouldn’t be an anomaly.

So, when I read through the comments today, I realised that these parents didn’t understand that the children speak openly to them because the Peppa Pig family is a family that fully embraces doing activities together and being involved in each other’s lives, young and old.

Above all, I wish the parents could start watching this animation series to learn about healthy family dynamics, especially where the child-parent relationship is concerned. Instead of bashing it for raising self-conscious and assertive children, they should see how they become parents that embrace such strong values in children, their own children.

It’s great to finally see you paying attention to what your children are watching, but you totally got it wrong about Peppa Pig.

Dear black parents, Peppa Pig is there to help you parent better, not to mess up your child. Watch it with your child. If you’re a parent that is complaining about what Peppa Pig teaches your child, please check yourself. You are the problem.

• Kabelo Chabalala is the founder and chairperson of the Young Men Movement (YMM), an organisation that focuses on the reconstruction of the socialisation of boys to create a new cohort of men. Email, kabelo03chabalala@gmail.com ; Twitter, @KabeloJay; Facebook, Kabelo Chabalala

Kabelo Chabalala.

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