Oh, Creators of Peppa Pig, Did You Have To?
For many people, pregnancy announcements are a joyous thing, but when you’re struggling to conceive, they really are not.
For many people, pregnancy announcements are a joyous thing: A cause for celebration, cheers—perhaps a baby shower or two.
But when you’re struggling to conceive, they really are not. They come flying at you like missiles from friends, family members, the influencers you follow on Instagram. Each one hurts and takes some bouncing back. (And yes, it’s the same with birth announcements.) They’re all the more upsetting when you’re not expecting them.
When I was trying—and failing—to conceive, I had a rolling list in my head of people I knew were probably trying and could announce at any moment. I constantly braced myself for people’s happiest moments that made me feel my worst. It’s not just something I’ve experienced myself, as the author and host of “Big Fat Negative,” I’ve heard countless stories of others feeling the same.
This is one of the many reasons why the recent pregnancy of Mummy Pig—who, let me be clear, is a cartoon character—has been so hard to stomach. None of us in the infertility community saw this coming. And so none of us were prepared for the onslaught; not even those of us who have managed to conceive. (I now have two IVF boys.)
If you’ve been living under a rock and missed this extremely trumped up bit of news, (by which I really mean, “news,”) Mummy Pig, the mother of Peppa Pig—the 4-year-old cartoon piglet and star of the eponymous mega hit which has been around about a quarter of a century at this point—has just had another baby. But the weirdest bit of all, the revelation that Mummy Pig was pregnant was revealed on the actual news a month before the episode aired on March 30.
The “baby news” broke when Good Morning Britain, a weekday news show that runs on ITV, staged an interview with Mummy Pig to announce the pregnancy—she even proudly displayed her ultrasound picture. (To confirm, the show doesn’t usually interview cartoon characters.) Just over three weeks later there was a gender reveal party hosted by the Peppa Pig store at London’s Battersea Power Station, with its famous chimneys lit up in pink. (Surprise, a girl!) And there was an exclusive interview with Mummy Pig herself in Grazia—a beauty and fashion magazine that usually sees models gracing its cover, read by fashionistas, who are more likely 26 years old, not 6.
Then, on May 20, the birth of Evie Pig was reported across the media landscape in a sort-of-strange, sort-of-surreal, semi-serious way. It sort of makes you wonder if the proudest parent of all was Hasbro, the American toy and entertainment company, which bought Entertainment One—the owner of the Peppa Pig franchise—in 2019 for £3.3 billion.
“Guys, I’ve got an idea—let’s pretend Mummy Pig’s an influencer and get her on all the morning shows!”
I’ve tried to picture the scene in the marketing department: “Guys, I’ve got an idea—let’s pretend Mummy Pig’s an influencer and get her on all the morning shows!” “LET’S TAKE HER TO BATTERSEA POWER STATION! It’ll be as iconic as the Pink Floyd album cover.” Chortle chortle. And the craziest part is, it actually happened.
Then came the deal with Jeep. The Daily Mail announced that Mummy and Daddy Pig had been gifted a new SUV following the birth, with the plucky line, “We heard you loud and clear! There's only one car you should drive Baby Evie home in.”
That’s when the penny dropped, for me, about who this is actually for. Do kids care about pregnancy announcements? Or understand the celebrity pregnancy shot references? Or know what a gender reveal party is? No, I’d wager they do not.
It’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. And they have. One in six people in the world will struggle to conceive. And if my infertility community is anything to go by, people are upset, fuming even. They’re already dealing with real announcements from left, right and centre. Do they need a fake one too? All over the news?
“Triggered AF by a cartoon pig,” responded one person on Instagram when I asked how people felt about it. “I wanted them turned into sausages!” fumed another.
“Triggered AF by a cartoon pig,” responded one person on Instagram when I asked how people felt about it. “I wanted them turned into sausages!” fumed another. Others were just plain sad: “Even a pig managed to get it right,” said one responder. “I saw her announcement in my feed after a [baby] loss,” came another response. Three—three!—people told me they were upset because Evie was the girl name they wanted to use if/when they managed to conceive.
Then there’s the fact that the “delivery” took place in the Lindo Wing, the private maternity ward at St Mary’s Hospital in West London where various royals, including Princess Diana, the Princess of Wales, and Princess Catherine, the Princess of Wales, gave birth to their royal progeny. They could have turned it around by having Mummy Pig give birth at a NHS hospital where the vast majority of births happen in the U.K. But they didn’t.
This isn’t the first time I’ve taken umbrage with Peppa Pig. As someone who has sat through my fair share of episodes (my older son had a three-year love affair with Peppa and George and their mundane adventures), I’ve always hated the stereotyped gender roles.
Mummy Pig is always doing household chores. Daddy Pig is always off to work; we know he’s an architect. While Mummy Pig is seen working from home occasionally, we have no idea what she does for work—apparently it’s not important enough for us to know—though she is frequently spotted carting around her gigantic computers or laptops. Maybe she’s a coder.
Katie Tobin, writing for Slate, suggested this new storyline and over-the-top marketing campaign is actually pro-natalist propaganda from the powers that be, desperately trying to encourage women to have more kids. It’s a dark thought, but given what’s happening in the world at the moment—with the right’s obsession with IVF and population decline—I wouldn’t put it past them. Whoever “they” are.
