Parents: Beware of 'Children's Programming'

Every time I open my Netflix account to turn on Octonauts for my four-year-old, the streaming platform starts rolling videos from a content creator by the name of “Ms. Rachel.” Honestly, I found her saccharine tone grating and infantilizing, and so I banned my kids from watching her on those grounds alone!

But shortly after I first stumbled across her, a news story made its way across my screen about a Jewish organization asking the Department of Justice to investigate her for using her platforms to promote antisemitism. Shocked, I dug deeper and quickly learned that Ms. Rachel, who has been dubbed “a modern-day Mister Rogers,” also promotes gender ideology on her platforms, which are targeted towards the youngest viewers and have amassed more than 10 billion views. 

It was the most recent of what seems to be a constant stream of reminders that children’s programming today is not what it used to be. 

We are strict, and I keep what has come to be known in my house as, “The List," which is programming my kids are allowed to watch. The problem is it keeps getting shorter. 

Ms. Rachel was never on it, but all of PBS Kids programs once were. I liked that my kids could open the app with no lewd advertising, no external content, just innocent and educational shows like Curious George or Wild Kratts—a science show from which my kids still spout facts they learned more than 10 years ago. But those days ended when not long after the preschool program Arthur featured woke content, my daughter came to me to say that her favorite PBS Kids show, Odd Squad—a wonderfully zany show about tween science nerds—had featured what she called “rainbow flag stuff.” Now only a select few PBS programs remain on the list, and I’m braced for the day when Curious George heads to the U.N. to lobby for women’s rights.  

What the Ms. Rachel controversy reveals is that children increasingly get their content across multiple platforms, not just a television screen, and while certain political themes might be filtered out of what Netflix carries, if they head over to YouTube to watch the latest episode, they might see a very different side of their beloved television character. As The New York Times put it:

Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, at times presents a different side of herself on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where the content is geared less toward toddlers and more toward their parents. There her millions of followers will also find impassioned videos touching on current events. These focus on the push for universal child care and geopolitical crises that have led to suffering children—above all, the ongoing war in Gaza. 

The problem is that kids are getting their content on those same social media platforms, often through smartphones or tablets with caregivers or even in the classroom, where the content is, as the Times so accurately reports, geared differently.

Whether or not you agree or disagree with Ms. Rachel on any of these issues, these media personalities make lasting impressions on children’s developing brains and sense of values. I still remember the peace and calm I felt when watching Mister Rogers, and I especially took to heart his lessons about kindness towards others. But Mister Rogers reached children in a time when the only way they received his content was on a television in their living room, and that content was decidedly non-political. He was so quiet about his political views that decades after his show ended, his now-adult followers were surprised to learn that he was a registered Republican. As one columnist wrote in USA Today: “He was also a Republican, albeit a quiet one. Rogers never wanted politics seeping into his work.”

Today, it would seem that some of the most prominent child and teen influencers—from Ms. Rachel to Taylor Swift—take the opposite approach and use their wide range of platforms to push a political agenda that unquestionably reaches children despite being age-inappropriate. 

While all the scolding about content in children’s programs can feel exhausting, it behooves parents, myself included, to remain ever vigilant. I don’t pretend to be a perfect parent on this front. If anything, I am like all other concerned parents, trying to navigate a field in which the goalposts seem to be constantly shifting.

For a brief period, I believed that simply fixing the settings on platforms like Disney+ and Netflix to G and password protecting everything else would be enough. But for parents who don’t want adult themes related to gender and sexuality or other political issues in their children’s programming, it simply isn’t. 

And so, in this ever-evolving world of media and kids, parents seeking to shield their children from woke content on the ever-growing range of platforms simply cannot afford not to stay woke. 

Ashley E. McGuire is a Contributing Editor at the Institute for Family Studies and the author of Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female (Regnery, 2017).

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