My informant told me a short German children’s tale of Struwwelpeter. It translates to “Straw Peter” and it is about a young boy who refuses to eat the porridge his parents have prepared for him. Peter refuses to eat the porridge as he does not like it, and the parents refuse to feed him anything else. Struwwelpeter gets skinnier and skinner every day, and eventually he becomes the size of a straw. And after that he disappears into thin air because he is so skinny. The first time my informant heard this story was through their German grandmother while she was recounting the “crazy and funny” German folklore she has grown up with. My informant has been in elementary school at the time. The story was also taught to my informant in their German language class in high school. According to my informant, the tale of Struwwelpeter served as a didactic story for children to get them to eat the food that has been prepared to them.

It is interesting how both Struwwelpeter and his parents both refuse to do something. This symbolizes a friction between the two generations. While nothing happens to the parents by refusing to serve anything else to their son, Peter disappears because of his refusal, so in a way the stubbornness is at the center of the moral of the tale. As he wastes away and eventually disappears, the message is clear: kids who don’t listen or refuse to obey might just vanish from existence. It’s a harsh moral, but it reflects how older generations often tried to teach lessons through fear and exaggeration.The fact that nothing happens to the parents is also telling—it kind of shows how adult authority goes unchallenged, and how the burden of change or obedience always falls on the child. The tale ends up reinforcing this idea that kids should accept what they’re given and not question it, even if it seems unfair.

When my informant talked about hearing this story from their grandmother, and then again in school, it made me think about how these stories are passed down—not just for fun, but as part of cultural tradition. And even though Struwwelpeter comes across as bizarre or funny today, it still carries those old values around discipline and behavior. In the end, Struwwelpeter is more than just a weird story about a kid disappearing—it’s about control, about what happens when you push back against expectations. It uses absurdity to make a point, but that point is rooted in something serious: the fear of what happens when you go against the grain.