People are only just realising a sinister detail about Horrid Henry, and it’s ruined my childhood

Many of us grew up watching the shenanigans and antics of a 10-year-old boy aptly named Horrid Henry. You might have related to him, you might have hated him, but 20 years after the show first launched, people are clocking a concerning theme throughout the series.

The Horrid Henry show, as we know it, launched in 2006. It followed Henry throughout his daily life alongside a nameless mum and dad, his brother, Perfect Peter, and a range of supporting characters such as Moody Margaret, Rude Ralph, Sour Susan, Lazy Linda, and Miss Oddbod.

Each episode tended to follow the same structure: Henry being a complete and utter w*nker as his family cleared up the mess behind him. Only now, after seeing out-of-context clips on TikTok, am I realising that we unfairly characterised him as horrid. Then again, “abuse victim Henry” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Here’s why people think Horrid Henry suffered from abuse

As kids, most of us thought Horrid Henry was just that, Horrid. He pestered his little brother Peter, who the true ones hated from the very start, created havoc at school, and set his parents up the wall. But years later, and after a little thing called life experience, I’m realising that Henry wasn’t horrid at all, his parents were.

Not only were they neglectful of his needs, instead fawning over literally everything Perfect Peter did, but their version of discipline was straight up nasty. They’d ban him from sweets while funnelling them towards Peter, scream and shout at him at the top of their lungs, and actually refer to him as “horrid Henry” when he was in the room.

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I’m not the only person who has fallen down the rabbit hole, and there are dozens of YouTube videos addressing the abusive undertones of Horrid Henry. Even some parents are against it.

“Henry isn’t a bad kid, he gets abused by neglect (not getting food, breakfast bowl taken away, ‘GO TO YOUR ROOM! YOU CAN HAVE TEA IN THE MORNING!’) and emotional abuse (Peter once sprayed him with the hose, the Dad thought Peter was watering the flowers and Henry got in trouble for ‘telling lies’. The Dad and Mum left Henry at home, and the Dad blamed his son for a traffic jam.)” one parent wrote online.

“So, Henry isn’t a bad kid; he’s horrid because his brother and Mum and Dad are horrid to him first. He learned it from Peter, Mum, and Dad.”

Another wrote on Reddit: “It’s almost like they’ve shown Henry that the only way he can actually have any attention of any kind is if he acts out and commits bad behaviour. They never praise his good actions and only notice his bad ones. A child with neglect issues is, of course, going to keep on doing the one thing that gets him attention.”

Justice for Horrid Henry!!

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