Winnie-the-Pooh's Strong Single Mom

© Michael Buckner / Getty Images

In the beloved children's classic Winnie-the-Pooh, did you ever realize that practically all the characters are male? Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, Christopher Robin - even little Roo - all boys. All males. The sole female character? Kanga, a mother. Roo's mother, to be exact.

Is there a deeper meaning to this - perhaps a bite-sized morsel of misogyny cooked up for the pre-K set? And why should you care?

Winnie-the-Pooh Day

You should care because today is Winnie-the-Pooh Day, established in recognition of the birthday of writer A. A. Milne, Pooh's creator, born on this day in 1882.

As for the initial concern...apparently I'm not the first to question the lack of gender equity among Pooh and his friends.

Sexism and Stuffed Animals?

At Topher's Castle, an excellent Winnie-the-Pooh online resource and home of the helpful Winnie-the-Pooh FAQs, J. Urey asks, "Why are all the majority of the characters, in Winnie-the-Pooh, of the male gender?" To which Topher knowledgeably responds:

First, think about the times in which this book was published. Did you know this book was published in 1926, yet women did not get the full right to vote in England until 1928? (Not that this is totally relevant, it's just an interesting fact). Now, look at it from the eyes of a young boy. Do most young boys who have stuffed animals give them boy's names or girl's names? Therein lies their gender. The only real female character is a Mom.

Hmmm...there must be a deeper meaning. There must be.

Deep Pooh & Dysfunctional Pooh

Others like me - unwilling to take this innocent story at face value - have sought to unveil the greater significance of life in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Over the years, Pooh has been invested with much deeper and more profound meaning than Milne himself could possibly have intended. There's the Tao of Pooh, Pooh and Ancient Greece to ponder, and an article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, written by a handful of medical professionals (apparently with a lot of of free time on their hands). Lead author Dr. Sarah E. Shea, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and others analyzed the characters in the Pooh books. The team expressed concern over "the problem of Roo's growing up with a single parent," and wrote the following about the series' sole female character:

Kanga is noted to be somewhat overprotective. Could her possessiveness of Roo relate to a previous run-in with social services? And where will Kanga be in the future? It is highly likely that she will end up older, blowsier, struggling to look after several joeys conceived in casual relationships with different fathers, stuck at a dead end with inadequate financial resources.

But perhaps we are being too gloomy. Kanga may prove to be one of those exceptional single mothers who show a natural resilience — an ability, if we may say so, to bounce back.

Maybe Kanga will pass her high school equivalency test, earn a university degree and maybe even get an MBA. Perhaps some day Kanga will buy the Hundred Acre Wood and develop it into a gated community of $500,000 homes. But that is not likely to happen, particularly in a social context that does not appear to value education and provides no strong female leadership.

That's it - that's the deeper meaning I've been looking for from a woman's perspective!

A Strong Single Mother in Classic Children's Literature

How many of us realize that Kanga was probably our first introduction to the depiction of a single mother as a strong character in children's literature?

Even when Disney got a hold of the Pooh franchise, the animation studio famous for creating separation anxiety between child and mother (think Bambi and Dumbo) could do nothing to alter the praiseworthy qualities of the maternal, benevolent, and steadfast Kanga.

But wait, there's more.

A Bear of Very Little Brain...and Even Less Gender Stability

The deepest meaning of all may come from the simple fact that Winnie-the-Pooh, though male, was a closeted cross-gendered character. Pooh (also known as Edward Bear) got his name from a popular female black bear at the London Zoo named Winnie after the city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. The bear was reportedly a favorite of Milne's son Christopher and so the father gave his own fictional bear character the same name. And the added name of Pooh? That came from another creature beloved by Christopher Robin - a creature of the most manly proportions - a swan.