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this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2026
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I find it intersting that straw and sticks are both cheap and plentiful, while brick is financially expensive and resource-intensive.
So another reading, hard to avoid, is that it reinforces the just world narrative where it just so happens rich people come out on top all the time because they are morally better and poor people come out worse because they are lazy..
In the original they are 3 brothers and begin with equal means given to them by their mother, fwiw.
I don't think I've ever heard an origin story for them. It's always been, "Once upon a time, there were three little pigs."
When it comes to stuff like this, I don't think it matters so much what the original authorial intent was, more how the story has been transmitted in pop culture.
No telling that I've ever heard starts with three little pigs having wealth disparity and only one being able to afford bricks due to generational wealth.
The implication of the story is that they are all equal and one works harder than the others. Which is a real life lesson. Regardless of your views on systemic wealth allocation, at any socio-economic class, hard work is still a virtue.
I feel like you're seeing the lesson you want to see.
Stories can have multiple meanings, even to the same person, and different meanings can be the emotional drive behind sharing the story, even if they are never explicitly stated.
Sure, and people can read whatever they want into a text even if it's not there.
Do you remember the phrase "to each according to their need, from each according to their ability"? Socialism and communism has always valued hard work. Pushing the value of hard work is not a capitalist conspiracy, it was literally most of the messaging of the Soviet Union.
An immediate example is what I'm taking from your comments despite, "I am media-illiterate" not being present in the text.
See also: the words of Jesus vs how America has transmitted them in pop culture.
Jesus' words have been supporting totalatarian structures since 400 AD at least, but, yeah, at least those people had the excuse of illiteracy and lack of access to the words of the Son of God. You have to be pretty damn incurious to swallow evangelicalist politics.
Jesus' words have been supporting totalatarian structures since 400 AD at least, but, yeah, at least those people had the excuse of illiteracy and lack of access to the words of the Son of God. You have to be pretty damn incurious to swallow evangelicalist politics.
That's fair.
I've 'avoided' any idea that it was yet another classism tale, for decades. Maslow's hammer?
There's a podcat I listen to, "If Books Could Kill" which covers books. There is definitely themes to books that are popular: among them, they a) encourage a sense of agency in the reader and b) they never talk about systemic issues or group action. In other words, there is sort of indiviualist mono-myth that gets repeated over and over again. The 3 Little Pigs fits right in there.
Brick is also plentiful, it's just more time consuming. You get clay out of the ground, it's mud. It is resource intensive though, it does have to be shaped and fired, so that's a whole process.
Still, I think the allegory still would have worked if the third pig had used logs instead of brick, the point would be the same. Durable materials are a better choice in the long term.
They could also have just used stone, keeping with the primitive rural theme.
It's kind of like if one pig walked, the other rode a bike, and the third had private jet.
Well again, that's a different story, as that's about things they had, not things they did.
It's a good story, a good lesson--prepare carefully for the future. I'd want my kids to learn it too, and I'd probably tell them this story for that reason.
BUT
If you can prevent bad things happening to you, when bad things happen you could have prevented them, ie it is your fault.
This story does is one more brick to the foundation of the just of the just world fallacy.
Then again, do I want my kids to have an existential crisis at 3-years-old and kill themselves in despair of living in an unfair world where they have little agency over their destiny? Probably not.
Yeah, I mean both stories are important and you can absolutely teach both of these lessons.
Teaching to prepare for the future is not inherently bad though, it's teaching self reliance, is incredibly important. And the truth is, you can prepare for the future on a day to day basis. If you're planning a beach trip, bring sunscreen, an extra pair of socks, your sand toys, the more prepared they are, the more fun the kid will have.
Simultaneously, since humans have existed, parents have been telling children that "life is not fair", and that's also a very important lesson, and a hard one to accept. As they get older you start expanding on what you mean by that, pointing out the inequities in society, and how it might affect them.
The danger of teaching children only that the world isn't fair, and they may never be able to achieve what some others will have handed to them, is that it can leave them feeling helpless. And helplessness can be just as deadly as a big bad wolf. They do need to be prepared to take care of themselves, personally I think that's your primary job as a parent, to help them figure out how to do that.
It's true, the world isn't just, but regardless, you also won't achieve much without putting in work.