Thomas the Tank Engine had to shut the hell up to save children everywhere

There are many terrible children's programs through which parents must suffer during their child's young life. For every Sesame Street, there is an annoying Caillou or an acid-trippy Yo Gabba Gabba. But Thomas and Friends is – or was – the one show with enough subversive messages to make me turn it off for good.

Thomas the Tank Engine had to shut the hell up to save children everywhere A9330e6a-a5e3-4c2a-a7a7-36324e5cfc4d-460x276

Thomas the Tank Engine had to shut the hell up to save children everywhere A9330e6a-a5e3-4c2a-a7a7-36324e5cfc4d-460x276

My son, now three-and-a-half years old, thankfully never never went through a manic train fascination like so many other children. But once in a while, he'd get a bug in his brain to watch Thomas, and every time I sat and watched with him, I winced and groaned almost as much as Percy.

When I heard the news this week, that the voice actor behind Thomas's incessant whinging quit the series because he was underpaid, I remembered all of the reasons that I cut my kid off from the show in the first place.

Thomas and those friends are trains that toil away endlessly on the Isle of Sodor – which seems to be forever caught in British colonial times – and, on its surface, the show seems to impart good moral lessons about hard work and friendship. But if you look through the steam rising up from the coal-powered train stacks, you realize that the pretty puffs of smoke are concealing some pretty twisted, anachronistic messages.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/22/thomas-the-tank-engine-children-parents

Thomas the Tank Engine had to shut the hell up to save children everywhere

Thomas the Tank Engine had to shut the hell up to save children everywhere

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