The tiger that came to tea

[Mango1982]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9920825/Tiger-Came-Tea-lead-rape-harassment-campaigner-claims.html

This kind of nonsense is why I am not a feminist and it really hurts your cause it’s exactly in the same vain as company’s saying pregnant people

It’s bat shit

Some feminists were saying it promotes sexist stereotypes

Iam a stay at home mother their is nothing wrong with that and I do get the feeling that feminists hate the traditional family set up and I don’t understand why
I am not being made to stay at home if anything I felt pressure to work in the past witch ended up being harmful to my mental health and my family

Why shouldn’t girls be able to feel ok with wanting to be a stay at home and raise their children if that’s something they think they would like to do

It doesn't at all. Male and female tigers look the same. And the delivery boy drawing could quite easily be a girl, it's a prepubescent child. And of course "Daddy's beer" is just some bottles of beer. But obviously by playing fast and loose with the minutiae of the story I am joyless, ruining the story for my children, ruining their imaginations, disrespectful, and so on. 🙄

Well i did wonder assassinated 😀

I couldn’t really see how it would make a difference

@AssassinatedBeauty

What this particular woman has said about this particular book is correct. It does show old fashioned stereotyped relationships and it does show the Dad arriving at the end as the problem solver not the mum. What the DM and others have done is sensationalise what was said and reported "opposing" views that oppose something that wasn't even said by the original commentator (that the book should be banned). All that was said was that it's a good idea to have a conversation with children about the stereotypes in the book, rather than accept them passively.

I've read this book to both my boys when they were small. It's a delightful book. I just made the Tiger female, the delivery boy became a delivery girl, I call the beer Mummy's beer and I talked in an age appropriate way about the roles the mum and the dad have and how it might be different now. That's all. No one is suggesting a book should be banned or that Judith Kerr isn't a great children's author!

The DM and others know exactly what they're doing. They're the ones that are promoting "cancel culture" as they seem unwilling to actually consider what was said and have a reasoned conversation. Much better for popularity to whip up a storm in a teacup.

Haha this interpretation is exactly what I do too! Female tiger, delivery girl and mummy's beer! Or just "the beer". And it's never "daddy's supper" just "supper". It's a lovely book though.

@RufustheBadgeringReindeer

How does making the tiger female change the relevance of the pictures?

I don’t think ive ever read it

It doesn't. It's just rare to have gluttonous "I'll l do what I want" female characters so is a nice refreshing tonal change. It doesn't affect the story.

@saraclara

I've read this book to both my boys when they were small. It's a delightful book. I just made the Tiger female, the delivery boy became a delivery girl, I call the beer Mummy's beer and I talked in an age appropriate way about the roles the mum and the dad have and how it might be different now

What a great way to ruin the flow of the story, the rhythm of the text and the relevance of it to the pictures. Not to mention the children's imagination.

Judith Kerr (probably the most amazing children's writer there's ever been) wrote that book the way she did, selecting the wording and poring over those drawings, for a reason. To make it fun, accessible and to stimulate children's imaginations and sense of the ridiculous.

To pull it apart, change it and turn it into a lesson is both joyless and disrespectful.

Generations of little girls had this read to them, yet turned into doctors, scientists, lawyers, and yes, SAHMs. And little boys had it read to them yet grew up to assume their daughters and wives would go to work.

For fucks sake, calm yourself.

Please forgive me if I am getting this wrong - but it feels like:

The right wing newspaper supports your views on some woke issues. They also printed this attack on a lovely book. Therefore you all also hate this lovely book and are clearly all evil and het up over trivial issues.

Or something like it ?

That argument is so much dingos kidneys. Groups agree with each other on some topics and disagree on others. Maybe the Mail does print 'anti-woke' items, maybe they also print anti-feminist items, maybe they print anti-immigrant items, maybe they print anti-left wing items.

Just because I maybe agree with one of their points of view, doesn't mean I must therefore agree with all of them.

I don't read their content, but the Mail might well say from a jingoistic point of view that it is shameful that some British people and Afghanistan staff may not be evacuated in time.

I don't read their content, but I suspect the Guardian also deplore the failure to evacuate people too.

What to do if both papers say the same thing ? Perhaps I could agree with them both on this particular issue and still be against both of them on other issues.

It's just so ridiculous to pick on one book which reflects the societal roles typical of its time. Practically all books do in one way or another. So unless we want to burn them all every time things move on a bit, then we'll have to accept that you can't re-write history. And that we set role examples to children through what we do and say, and can have age-appropriate conversations about the way things are portrayed in old books.

Exactly, @lazylinguist . But sadly there are some “cultural revolution” advocates who do indeed wish for the wiping out of a past of which they do not approve. I really want to know why they think current approved books will be immune from a future purge.

@Mango1982

We just want stuff we like left alone if you don’t like it don’t buy it for your kids lots of woke books on sale now it’s that fact the woke always trying to ban things for others

I really can't take seriously anyone like the OP who keeps throwing the word 'woke' around.

Ms Adamson did not call for banning book but said it could 'raise a conversation'

Many of the books written at that time show a very traditional family set up. That is fine. But there is nothing wrong with talking about that with your children. I'd say that that's good parenting. You talk about history, you talk about how life changes, you talk about gender roles, you reflect on your own family and the people they know. That is good parenting. Although yes, there comes a point when the kids don't want the lecture and just want to get on and enjoy the story. You can have both!
And also try and give kids a range of books - diverse in multiple ways.

Well i have concerns about that book too. The mother is clearly either stupid or mentally ill to allow a dangerous wild animal into the house. It is my understanding that several people have been mauled to death by wild animals after being influenced by that book. There is also the promotion of unhealthy eating, did you see the tea in question? That book is banned from my house.

@Findwen

Please forgive me if I am getting this wrong - but it feels like:

The right wing newspaper supports your views on some woke issues. They also printed this attack on a lovely book. Therefore you all also hate this lovely book and are clearly all evil and het up over trivial issues.

Or something like it ?

That argument is so much dingos kidneys. Groups agree with each other on some topics and disagree on others. Maybe the Mail does print 'anti-woke' items, maybe they also print anti-feminist items, maybe they print anti-immigrant items, maybe they print anti-left wing items.

Just because I maybe agree with one of their points of view, doesn't mean I must therefore agree with all of them.

I don't read their content, but the Mail might well say from a jingoistic point of view that it is shameful that some British people and Afghanistan staff may not be evacuated in time.

I don't read their content, but I suspect the Guardian also deplore the failure to evacuate people too.

What to do if both papers say the same thing ? Perhaps I could agree with them both on this particular issue and still be against both of them on other issues.

I think you've missed the point. Neither The Mail nor the Guardian nor The Times printed an attack about this book- they reported the criticism made by Zero Tolerance Scotland (or whoever it was)

Tilting at windmills = investing time and energy better spent elsewhere attacking enemies that don't exist @Mango1982. You've created an imaginary opponent. Don Quixote spends his time jousting windmills that he believes to be terrifying giants. Tilting comes from jousting.

Don Quixote spends his time jousting windmills

I bloody hate windmills.

You'll have read about the Afghani village woman. For several days in a row, Taliban fighters came to her house and demanded that she feed all 15 of them. After a few nights, she said that she couldn't continue feeding them because her family was poor. They killed her.
A tiger might well have done the same thing.
So you could say that this is a very up to date story.

@donquixotedelamancha

Don Quixote spends his time jousting windmills

I bloody hate windmills.

🤣

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

I think you are taking the Daily Mail too seriously. A feminist has pointed out that the relationships in the book are very old fashioned, which they are. A DM journalist has picked this up for click bait. There is not a feminist campaign against The Tiger Who Came To Tea.

Very much agree.

And 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' is pretty much my favourite book of all time.

I have never thought of The tiger that came to tea as an old fashioned book.

In many ways, it is an iconic example of the modern in children's literature because it presents the fantastical and extraordinary in a very mundane way, and it has no moral.

People forget that prior to the 20s, the fantastical wasn't perceived to be appropriate for children. Children's books and stories had to have a moral purpose; they had to be instructional. AA Milne changed all that with Christopher Robin, and Enid Blyton went to town with it, but Judith Kerr went a step further by placing within the fantastical an adult observer in the mother and gave no authorial moral dictat upon the reactions of either the mother, daughter or indeed father. At no point does she suggest the tiger was bad, nor the mother neglectful for letting the tiger in the house. It simply is.

In this way, Kerr is more revolutionary than a lot of new children's literature that is crammed full of "right ways to think" about behaviour, feelings and identity, which can often feel a bit neo-Victorian.

@Packingsoapandwater

I have never thought of The tiger that came to tea as an old fashioned book.

In many ways, it is an iconic example of the modern in children's literature because it presents the fantastical and extraordinary in a very mundane way, and it has no moral.

People forget that prior to the 20s, the fantastical wasn't perceived to be appropriate for children. Children's books and stories had to have a moral purpose; they had to be instructional. AA Milne changed all that with Christopher Robin, and Enid Blyton went to town with it, but Judith Kerr went a step further by placing within the fantastical an adult observer in the mother and gave no authorial moral dictat upon the reactions of either the mother, daughter or indeed father. At no point does she suggest the tiger was bad, nor the mother neglectful for letting the tiger in the house. It simply is.

In this way, Kerr is more revolutionary than a lot of new children's literature that is crammed full of "right ways to think" about behaviour, feelings and identity, which can often feel a bit neo-Victorian.

There were books with moral ideas in them, but I would say that the difference is they didn't necessarily come right out and tell you what you were supposed to think. The child reader, like an adult reader, was free to come to their own conclusions about the moral problems presented.

We seem to have moved well away from that now, however, and be squarely back in the mindset that stories for children need to be clearly didactic and make the moral lesson completely impossible to miss. Stories with moral ambiguity are seen as potentially teaching children bad lessons.

It's why many parents now can't deal with a book like The Giving Tree - they can only interpret it as if it is meant to show children an example to emulate, and as if they have no minds or ability to think about the story.

Can’t imagine that a cosy British author like Judith Kerr would have experienced anything other than a traditional upbringing.

Oh wait...

Or perhaps fantasy and imagination and terrific illustrations are good things in children’s literature. If I want an anthropomorphic allegory, I’ll stick with Animal Farm, thanks.

By the way did anyone else’s kids think the tiger was really the stripy cat seen on the way to the cafe?

Yes to the stripey cat. DH not convinced though

I love this book and would point out that it's one of the few kids books with female lead character. Plus who's to say that Sophie's mum isn't :

a hospital doctor who isn't on shift

Just having a day off to use up her annual leave

Maybe has a part time job

Is at home because it's Saturday and Sophie's dads works on Saturday (estate agent?)

Is worried about Daddy's tea because it's the only day of the week she does the cooking.

These are valid questions that can be asked but the traditional roles don't have to ruin the book.

Should also say Sophie's mummy might also simply have decided she wants to stay at hone - which is a perfectly valid choice

@KimikosNightmare

When asked where they would go for tea if there was no food in the house the best suggestion I got was 'go to your nan's then you won't have to pay

Really? That was the best suggestion? Go to another woman's house and expect her to cook for them?

Maybe that's the reality of those kids' lives? I can believe it. Why so patronising?