Our four-year-old son is a fan of Peppa Pig. In my opinion it’s one of the least offensive of the infinite kids TV shows.
The accents are quaint. The animation style is colourful and jovial and it’s quite positive in its messaging.
Friends playing together, jumping in muddy puddles, enjoying outdoors, holidays, school and family.
He watches the show fairly regularly, and we have a eight of the hard cover picture books. They’re nicely presented and quality material for young ones when learning to read. It’s difficult not to impersonate the Peppa Pig voiceover guy when reading aloud.
But over the past month, my son has started up hard on the ‘Boys are on one team, Girls are on the other’ thing.
“You can’t do that because you’re a girl. That’s only for boys”
Call me crazy, but it’s coming from Peppa Pig.
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He won’t go on my partner’s “team” when we’re out in the backyard kicking a ball around playing football. Boys need to be against Girls.
It’s definitely the show, and sure he’s going through a massive grown spurt and has a bunch of “raah I’m a boy/man” hormone stuff happening, but he’s being socialised to team up against girls because of Peppa.
It’s a go-to theme for story lines. You’ll notice it now.
Stories pivot around Peppa having her group of female-only friends, and her brother George having his group of male-only friends. For our little guy, it’s been of note because he’d never previously said anything like not wanting to play with someone “Because they’re a girl.”
One episode in particular really kicked it off, concerning a football game. It’s called Bouncy Ball. Just something I noticed. We’re seeking to deter his notion that he can no longer play with girls.
