Pig Man

A few years ago, my kids loved this Duck on a Tractor book. They made me read it to them almost every night for about a month. At that time, my daughter E was 4 years old and my son C was 2 years old. Now they are 6 and 4 respectively. I didn’t particularly care for the book for a variety of reasons - one of which depicted a man very similar to a pig and the author deciding to call him fat.

Fat isn’t necessarily a bad word, but I don’t want my kids using it as an adjective because it could hurt someone’s feelings. Also, the book didn’t have people looking like part animal with certain animal characteristics (like a bird lady who can fly). The book only had that one person singled out and drawn like a pig because he was fat. And he was called fat in the book. Just horrendous in my opinion.

I tended to skip that page (or certain sentences) here and there in the past because I didn’t like reading that part. I thought nothing of it after the book was hidden away for the last few years. Recently, my kids wanted to read the book again and when I got to the page, I skipped the sentence like I have done countless times in the past.

My daughter E quickly called out that I didn’t say fat when it got to the part about the pig man. I didn’t read the sentence and it wasn’t a major part of the story. Doesn’t matter that it had been more than 2 years since she has read that book. She called me out on it after pulling that from deep in her memory bank. I was surprised she even remembered and said she was right. I ended up reading that part and not making it a big deal, but I was shocked that she remembered. I think the thing that surprises me the most is that kids hold onto memories and experiences much harder than I even realized. It’s just a constant reminder to watch out for what kids are exposed to and to try and reinforce the things you want them to pick up - and hopefully they are kind things!