The girl who could be ruined by Peppa Pig

WHEN she began her career at age 7, there’s no way Harley Bird could have known what would come. But if she’s not careful, an iconic children’s show could ruin her life, writes Kylie Lang.

Harley Bird has been voicing Peppa Pig since she was seven years old. (Pic: supplied)

WHAT brand of insanity is it to pay a teenager $1800 an hour?

Nice work if you can get it, I hear you say, but I don’t care how skilled 16-year-old Harley Bird might be as the voice of Peppa Pig, no school student should be spoiled with this much dough.

Society is hung up enough on money without encouraging extravagance at such an early age.

The British girl has been in the role for 11 years, and the children’s show is now so popular that she can command up to $21,000 a week, or more than $1 million a year.

That’s crazy money.

Nothing against Bird, who could never have imagined how lucrative it would be to have “sounded a bit like a pig” as a little girl, but let’s hope she has solid financial guidance and, more importantly, the emotional grounding to deal with such largesse.

You only have to look at the plethora of Instagram accounts glorifying the “rich kids of” London, Beverly Hills, Tehran, Dubai or wherever to see how having too much money too soon can turn ugly.

Here they are, these children who have typically been handed their wealth on a silver platter, swilling Cristal champagne, putting their feet on the seats in the pointy end of the plane, and liking memes that read “never show up to a party sober” and “don’t get an apartment if the selfie lighting is bad”.

Not wanting to indulge kids and turn them into ungrateful brats who, like the Greek mythical god Narcissus, love themselves to death, sensible rich parents are refusing to offer handouts.

They want their offspring to learn the value of money and of the hard work it takes an average person to acquire a truckload of it.

They want them to find their own way, making mistakes, falling down and getting back up, in order to become resilient and respectful adults.

Harley Bird with her co-star Morwenna Banks who plays Mummy Pig. (Pic: supplied)

British musician Sting has admitted that most of his $300 million fortune will not go to his six kids, calling trust funds “albatrosses around their necks”.

Celebrity cook Nigella Lawson agrees, and will not be dishing out a hefty inheritance to her two, saying she is “determined that my children should have no financial security. It ruins people not having to earn money.”

It certainly does.

They can become lazy, self-indulgent, and fixated on chasing the next hedonistic high, often breaking the law because they’ve come to believe they are entitled to anything and everything.

Warren Buffett, the American business magnate currently worth 84.8 billion, reckons the best thing to do with money is give it away.

He has set up each of his three kids with a $2 billion foundation, but the deal is that they use it to help others. The rest of his phenomenal fortune is being apportioned to charity.

For Peppa Pig’s Harley Bird, the future is looking bright and shiny rolled gold but it will be interesting to see what she makes of it. Money is, after all, a means, not an end.