As an elementary school kid, my mother wanted me to learn something useful from whatever I was doing, especially when I was watching TV. She understood that I wasn’t just wasting my time watching something entertaining; my young mind clung to whatever it saw.
Predictably, my mother forbade me from watching certain shows like “SpongeBob” or anything on Cartoon Network. Many American kids can relate to this; parents across the country believed “junk TV” would rot our young brains by encouraging potty humor and undignified behavior. Parents like mine recognized that any habit in a kid’s life can become a formative experience and directly affect their imagination and long-term behavior. So they found an entertainment alternative that was a useful complement to their parenting: PBS Kids.
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a publicly funded non-profit that provides various types of programming. While publicly funded, PBS is not a government-controlled company. Instead, it’s a private company that receives significant funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), another private company that is 100% funded by Congress.
PBS Kids is one of PBS’s most popular blocks of programming. Shows like “Arthur” and “Curious George” not only educate kids on important concepts in math and science but also teach interpersonal skills. Learning to appreciate family or how to comfort upset friends helped me and countless other kids grow emotionally. As a child, however, the most important aspect was that the shows were entertaining. PBS Kids served as a healthy tool for parents who wanted to teach their kids about early learning concepts and essential social-emotional skills in an entertaining manner.
But PBS Kids has a problem: It has been taken over by the cultural Left.
In the past 20 years, PBS Kids has abandoned family values and interpersonal education in favor of inculcating kids into their “Alphabet Agenda” of Social Liberalism. Where PBS Kids was once part of a broader moral infrastructure of American education that taught kids like me to care about local community and family, it’s now being warped by the Left’s disordered vision for society.
One of the most egregious examples of PBS pushing this Alphabet Agenda onto kids was their airing of the 22nd season premiere of the show “Arthur.” In the episode, writers decided to make one of the show’s most iconic characters, Mr. Ratburn, gay. The storyline is all about Mr. Ratburn’s sexual identity, even showing his gay marriage ceremony. Rightfully so, Alabama Public Television (APT) refused to air the episode. Notably, APT’s Director of Programming, Mike McKenzie, defending the decision, said, “Parents trust that their children can watch APT without their supervision.”
Other shows like “Clifford the Big Red Dog” and “Odd Squad” subsequently featured similar instances of sexual identity and LGBT content being injected into the storyline of their episodes.
This soulless perversion the Left calls “inclusion” actually strikes at the core of what sustains our society: the traditional family.
Therefore, the easiest way to destroy this bedrock of societal cohesion is to strike at the children, the most vulnerable constituents of the traditional family. Institutions like Church and family have been abandoned as backward relics of a bigoted time by progressive show writers who would rather preach the mantra of “kids know who they are,” stripping the young and impressionable of values, traditions, and purpose. This trend sets us on the path of an eternally confused youth who has been told that neither their parents nor priest have the answers; rather, the Left has the answers.
In practice, we’ve seen the disastrous results of the “Alphabet Agenda.” According to the CDC, the suicide rates in youth aged 10-14 tripled from 2007 to 2021. In 2023, the CDC found that 4 in 10 high school students felt a feeling of sadness and hopelessness, with 2 in 10 students seriously considering suicide. Additionally, the signs are amplified in students who have been indoctrinated into the “Alphabet Agenda.” There’s no coincidence here: Societal disorder has contributed to our youth becoming more confused about who they are and what their purpose is, leading them to consider suicide.
But under no circumstances should Conservatives think all hope is lost. Studies have consistently shown that teens who are religious or attend religious services are significantly happier than their irreligious peers. Religious teens are also more family-oriented and traditional. We have the blueprint of how our traditional values and morals help create a society with happier children; it’s only a matter of implementing them as government policy. After years of being in the political minority, we finally have a chance for substantive policy change.
Conservatives made significant political gains in 2021 and 2022, largely due to the Leftist push for more “Alphabet Agenda” content in schools. The red wave in 2024 finally gave conservatives a political trifecta to fight it. Additionally, the surge in Gen Z voting Republican in 2024, especially on college campuses, shows that even the younger generation is dissatisfied with the lies of the cultural Left.
Unsurprisingly, the gilded idol of the “Alphabet Agenda,” transgenderism, has also become incredibly unpopular amongst Americans, according to Pew Research. This reality only reinforces the fact that conservatives have the mandate to use the tools of government the Left normally loves using, and return kids’ entertainment to what it was.
President Trump called for the complete defunding of PBS, but I believe this is the wrong move because we would be throwing away such a valuable tool in the fight against the cultural Left’s attack on children.
Rather, the conservative majority in Congress should use its power to reform the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) by creating content requirements connected to CPB funding. This means that unless PBS replaces its sexually immoral content with portrayals of traditional marriage, stable two-parent households, and pride in one’s community, Congress will cease all federal funding to CPB, which would be a significant cut to PBS funding.
Now, some may question the effectiveness of such an action due to overstimulating short-form content becoming increasingly popular with parents and kids. But PBS Kids remains incredibly popular and influential, with 15.5 million monthly digital users, reaching more kids than any other children’s TV network. Furthermore, PBS Kids is free, which means it can reach all American families, regardless of location or economic status.
When thinking about this issue, I imagine the new cohort of children, Generation Beta, growing up watching the same amazing shows I used to watch. But that will only be possible if we choose to do what is morally right and ethically sound.
This incredible opportunity to flip the script on the Left will provide educational, entertaining, and family-oriented content for millions of American kids. For the first time in over a decade, as APT Director of Programming Mike McKenzie said, parents will be able to trust public television to “provide children’s programs that entertain, educate and inspire.”
