Because I became a parent in my late 30s, much of what came at me with the birth of my son was not a surprise. The sudden lack of sleep. The sudden then continuous lack of money. The eternal fear raising the type of child who’d storm the capitol.  I’d seen it all before. 

But what I hadn’t considered–and of course I should have–was my re-entrance into children’s popular culture. When O was first born, I read him the classics. The Runaway Bunny. Corduroy. The Hungry Caterpillar.  When he was old enough to watch TV–or when it became necessary for him to watch TV so I could have 30 minutes to do dishes, laundry, bathe–we stuck to the classics as well. Dora the Explorer and Daniel Tiger were particular favorites for him, though he never took to Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers. 

But you also get cultural artifacts passed down to you along with hand-me-down clothes, and these artifacts can vary in quality. For every Snowy Day and The Notebook of Doom, there’s a Paw Patrol, which is nothing more than talking dogs involved in a marketing scheme. But the worst of all of them isn’t Pokemon or Dragon Masters, though those are particularly awful. 

It’s Thomas the Train. Others have written about how particularly terrible this series is, both in television and book form. It’s sexist and racist. And stupid. If you don’t remember it or used birth control correctly and never had to encounter it, here’s the gist: Thomas is a fully alive, though quite naive train, who works alongside his colleague trains. They carry fruit up large hills to town, pick up children for the beach, etc… But they do so under the heavy hand of their owner Sir Topham Hatt. Who as you can guess wears a suit and a top hat and is often found in a luxury dining car eating steak while Thomas and friends are busting their little train asses to make him said steak money. 

I didn’t know any of this when I first read a book to O, because I’d never gotten it as a child. 

Even in my parenting exhaustion, I found this book fucked up, and I decided that my son needed a lesson, so we talked about how Sir Topham Hatt is the bad guy. (Children love good guys/bad guys dichotomies). 

“He makes other people do the work,” I said. “While he sits back and does nothing.”

“That’s bad,” O said.

“Real bad.”

This lesson quickly became my go-to when having to quickly explain Marxist theory to my college students. Sir Tophan Hatt owns the means of production. Thomas is a member of the proletariat. Hatt contributes nothing to society, but takes all of its winnings. Thomas is happy for a roof and the meager pay he is given. 

The trains need to revolt.

 
O has since moved on to headier media. Harry Potter (which has…problems), Star Wars (which is kind of more boring than I remembered) and most recently, Warriors, which, if you don’t know, is about cats who not only fight, but also seem to instinctively suppress all joy and humor. He loves it. I don’t know why. But at least in Warriors, the cats serve the clan, and everyone works to the best of their abilities to help each other out. Yes, they are self-serious, but at least they aren’t using the invisible hand of the market to justify their laziness.