Peppa Pig: Corrupting little minds since 2004

I noticed today that Peppa Pig was trending on Twitter. I was curious, so I clicked and discovered what everyone was tweeting about – this article in the Daily Mail about parents claiming that Peppa Pig is a bad influence on toddlers.

We are big Peppa fans in our house. The first episode I ever saw was when Lilly was a baby. It was the one where they go on a picnic & Daddy Pig is scared by a wasp. It made me laugh & reminded me of our family… Not only because Hubby does tend to overreact at insects, but also because Peppa’s family are a nice, normal bunch, doing nice, normal, family type things. There is humour in basic everyday situations without the use of magic or anything complicated or scary to young kids. And I think Peppa Pig is something that reflects normal families and that children identify with.

Apparently though, the programme is really much more sinister. Did you know that Peppa Pig was the first one to give toddlers the ideas to:

• Splash in muddy puddles, rather than walk carefully round them, being sure not to get their nice shoes dirty
• Learn to say (and use) the word “No”
• Sometimes be cheeky & perhaps even not do what their parents ask them to do straight away & without complaint

And, most shockingly:

• Prefer chocolate cake to lettuce & cucumber!!!

My two girls are big Peppa fans, so imagine my guilt as I now realise I have let this evil, one dimensional, pink MONSTER get into their very souls & corrupt them, right there in my living room!!!!

God knows what would happen if children grew up watching cartoons like Tom & Jerry. I can only imagine the number of parents whose offspring would immediately leap up from the sofa & start hitting each with saucepans or using sticks of dynamite to blow up their parents. It’d be chaos!!

And what about Norman from Fireman Sam? If that kid doesn’t have an ASBO by the time he’s 15 I’ll be GOBSMACKED.

I must admit, however, that in the past a couple of real life mums have said to me that they think Peppa Pig is “spoilt”. But I don’t agree. I think she’s just lucky enough to come from a stable, happy family, and she’s loved. And anyway, look at the evidence, all she wanted for Christmas was a yoyo! And for her birthday she got one poxy piece of clothing – for her teddy!

In my opinion, if you want spoilt pigs, look no further than the ghastly Olivia, who has to always be the best & get all the attention, and her mum & dad find her oh-so adorable for doing so. Or that incredibly irritating Angelina Ballerina. Both a big pair of brats, if you ask me.

There are many more things on the TV that I prefer my little ones not to watch. Scooby Doo, for example, which has given my 4-year-old way too many nightmares and consequently given us way too many broken nights (cheers a bunch for letting all the kids watch it, nursery).

So, lay off the Pig, you crazy, hysterical people!

 

Related articles

• Peppa Pig is ‘making children naughty’, parents fear (telegraph.co.uk)
• Is Peppa Pig making toddlers naughty? Parents despair as children copy cartoon by answering back (dailymail.co.uk)
• So Peppa’s been a naughty pig. Do you worry about children’s TV shows? | Open thread (guardian.co.uk)

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Reasons to smile

We have the most amazing chats with Lilly now, she makes the funniest observations and always makes us smile – even when she’s waking us up at 3am (AGAIN)!

Today has been one of those days, we’ve had some really funny conversations. Here’s some of the highlights:

This morning, she was watching (yet another) episode of Same Smile (absolute favourite programme of the moment). There was a little boy making cakes with his daddy and it showed him spooning out icing to put on top of the cakes once they were baked.

Lilly turned to me and said: “I would like glue on cakes, wouldn’t I mummy?”

Driving home from nursery:

Me – “So, you’ve been a good girl today then?”

Lilly – “Yes, I’ve been a good girl. But sometimes I’m not good, I’m naughty.”

Me - “Oh? What naughty things to you do?”

Lilly – “I throw things all around.”

Me – “Why, what things did you throw all around?”

Lilly – “Er… I’ll tell you later, mummy”

Me – “Did you get told off?”

Lilly – “Er, I’ll tell you that later, too, mummy”

Then, at bedtime I got a little bit more of the story…

Lilly – “It’s very naughty to say NO to the other children, isn’t it mummy?”

Me – “Er, well it depends what you’re saying no to. Were you saying no to the children in nursery today Lilly?”

Lilly – “I’ll tell you later, mummy, after I’ve had a goooood night’s sleep.”

Also at bedtime tonight, after putting on her night time nappy (she’s potty trained in the day).

Lilly: “I’m doing a wee-wee in my nappy, mummy.”

Me – “Yes, that’s good, that’s what you do at night, isn’t it?”

Lilly: “I’m doing a wee-wee in my nappy, because, my nappy is very thirsty!”

Aside from the tantrums and the need for constant attention and the regular emotional breakdowns over not very much at all, two is just such a lovely age!

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A visit to the Night Garden… Live!

This morning I took Lilly to see In The Night Garden Live, at Sefton Park in Liverpool.

I booked the tickets a few months ago, when I was still working before Isla was born. The ticket prices were dependent on the time and date you wanted to see the show – and in my wisdom I decided that the 9.30am showing, when tickets were just £5 each, would be the perfect one to take our toddler and four week old baby to!

Fast forward a few months and it became obvious that the four of us were never going to get anywhere by 9.30am – in fact the earliest we have managed to leave the house all together since Isla was born is 11.15am!

So, we decided it would be much more realistic if I went with Lilly, leaving Tony at home minding Isla.

The show was set in its own giant tent / inflatable arena in the middle of Sefton Park – think giant white igloo. You had a choice of two different shows – Pinky Ponk or Ninky Nonk… we chose Pinky Ponk, cos that’s the way we roll!

We actually managed to arrive 15 minutes before the doors opened – but it was raining so we stayed in the car until 9am so that we wouldn’t get too wet (I told Lilly I’d forgotten to bring an umbrella – she replied: “I’ll squiggle you one mummy” – probably symptomatic of too much CBeebies over the past 4 weeks!)

We queued for about 5 minutes. Once inside, there are two main areas – the foyer with refreshment sales and merchandise stall, and the “theatre” itself. Although we didn’t need to partake ourselves I was quite impressed with the refreshments that were on offer – very toddler friendly things including Dairylea Dunkers, Mini Milks and fruit shoots as well as healthy sounding sandwiches and wraps. And all pretty cheap too – Mini Milks were 50p and I think sandwiches started about £1.65, not bad.

Before going into the theatre, I tried to persuade Lilly to go on the toilet – as we are slap bang in the middle of toilet training. Unfortunately, the toilets were the trailer ones – a step up from portaloos but only just! To be fair they had provided toddler seats and steps to help them reach the sinks in every one, but Lilly needs a lot of persuasion to sit on a ‘big toilet’ at the best of times, and these facilities just didn’t cut the mustard! The cubicles were also very very small – difficult for me and Lilly to both fit in – impossible if you had two children with you! After a while, and when even the offer of chocolate failed, I gave up trying to get Lilly to go and we went to find a seat.

We sat on the very top row as it was quite full when we got in, but we had a great view. The  stage was set with a huge ITNG storybook, the top of the magic gazebo and some trees, with the Pontipines house stage right.

As the lights dimmed and the theme tune started up, the stage and all the walls of the arena turned into stars, then those all familiar blossoms blooming, before a very impressive live version of Iggle Piggle sailing on his boat on the sea, which got a lot of gasps. Sad, I know, but it actually made me feel a bit emotional – I just love the music from Night Garden, and, in my defence, I did recently have a baby – my hormones are still a bit wibbly!

The storyline unfolded just like an episode of In The Night Garden – so, as is traditional, nothing much really happened! Makka Pakka wanted to clean some faces – accidentally sent his sponge flying – it lands in Upsy Daisy’s megaphone – she returns the sponge to Makka Pakka and all is well. (Sorry if I’ve ruined the ending for you there!) But, what were you expecting – the Matrix?!

Makka Pakka was the first character to appear to cheers, shouts and claps from both the toddlers and parents (it was hard to tell who was more excited, in some cases!). I have to say that Lilly was pretty spellbound, which just made my heart melt… And when the narrator announced that Makka Pakka was looking for some faces to wash, I said to her: “Would you like him to wash your face?” thinking she’d say “no”, but in fact she thought that sounded really fun and was shouting to Makka Pakka “Come up the stairs, Makka Pakka!”

Us Night Garden fans know that the sense of scale is all over the place in Night Garden, and that Makka Pakka is much smaller than Upsy Daisy and Iggle Piggle and so are the Tombliboos. They got around this by having different size Makka Pakkas – a big one for when it was only him on stage, and a small one worked by puppeteers when he was with the other characters. It was very cleverly done.

All in all it reminded me of impressionist mime meets a Take That concert, but for toddlers. They were unbelievable excited to see their “heroes” in the flesh, and all the old favourite songs got rapturous applause. Whenever a new character was introduced, they got claps and cheers - reminded me of Happy Days when the Fonz used to walk in the room!

And Lilly’s highlight was probably the bit where bubbles came down from above and covered the audience!

We did have one slightly hairy potty training moment when Lilly announced three quarters of the way through “I want my potty”, but could not be persuaded to leave to use those “scary toilets”. She also wouldn’t go on them at the end of the show, nor would she use the actual potty when we got back to the car. Cue me driving like a maniac back home in case of hearing the phrase “I need a wee wee” while driving down the motorway! (Luckily, it never came – I now know that, when it comes down to it, she can actually hold her weeing urges for an impressive amount of time!)

But, for £5 a head it was SO worth it… for the look on Lilly’s face alone and as a nice introduction to live performance. Thinking of taking her to see Peppa Pig later this year now…

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Cover star

Yesterday, when I dropped Lilly off at nursery, there was much excitement. Her nursery was celebrating its 2nd birthday. To mark this occasion, the local Local magazine was coming in to take photos of the children for their front page, and there was going to be a balloon release.

Naturally, I was very excited at the thought of my little girl being on the front of a magazine, especially as we missed out on this honour last year because we were at Center Parcs at the time of the photo.

But, the idea of a balloon release and a bunch of toddlers did concern me. As a friend of mine said when I told her: “What next? Give them all chinese burns?!” But never mind. Maybe it’d be ok.

Tony picks Lilly up from nursery and he hadn’t heard any news about how said balloon release went. So when I got home,  I asked Lilly how it had gone:

Me – Did you have a balloon today in nursery, Lilly?

Lilly – Yes!

Me – What colour was it?

Lilly – Number three

Me – No, what colour was it?

Lilly – Number three!

Me – Don’t you mean number 2? (it was the nursery’s second birthday)

Lilly – No! Number three!

Me – Ok. What colour was the number 3?

Lilly – Pink

Me – Oh, lovely. And did you let it go into the sky?

Lilly – Sky.

I checked with nursery this morning for more detail. They said Lilly cried and cried when the balloon went into the sky, in fact they said they had never seen her so upset.

I look forward to seeing the photos….

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