Today I was checking my email and I had received an email from the today show and while I was reading it and noticed that the show Arthur (that has been running since I was a child) has aired its 22nd season on Monday and they have now decided to make the teacher gay. When we had a television with a DVD player, we would allow the children to watch old episodes of Arthur and never really thought about it beforehand. Here is my question, for those of you that allow the children to watch tv between transitions or after nap, do you believe that the children's television shows that are suppose to be geared towards children today actually geared towards children like they were in the past or are they totally going into a different direction? Just curious as to what you feel like as a childcare provider

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I don't let my daycare kids have screen time at all and wouldn't allow other people's children to be exposed to this in my home. But times are different now and I see nothing wrong with my own kids being exposed to this kind of stuff. Kids are going to encounter gay people in their lives these days. It is good for them to have exposure to it and know how to interact and be empathetic with people who may be different than them. Who knows, we may even be providing care to a child who will turn out to be gay. I don't see the big deal.

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The media is likely making a big deal out of it. Kids won’t even notice if a character is gay or not! Whenever we talk about same sex marriage and relationships my kids get bored and couldn’t care less, to them it is normal and not something to be discussed or talked about really. The media likes to turn it into something it’s not I think!

We don’t watch tv at daycare usually.

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I haven't had a TV in many years and don't let the dcks watch videos at all. I think it's a good thing for them to represent all ways. But at a young age I don't think there needs to be a lot of sexual type teaching of any kind so I guess it all depends on how it's brought into the story line. Maybe they should promote things such as nontraditional play like boys playing with dolls/girls with trucks, that type of thing instead. Be who you want to be but promote tolerance, kindness and acceptance. Introduce these things matter-of-factly and don't make it into a big deal, ya know?
I used to have a dcf with 2 moms, dcks never blinked an eye. It just was. I have books geared towards little ones about different types of families, including kids living with grandparents, biracial families, 2 moms/dads.

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We do 1 episode of Disney Jr after lunch while cleaning up and transitioning to cots. Kind of hard to throw messaging into the really "young" cartoons like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I don't think kids pay much attention to it anyway. They just want something that catches their attention for a few minutes. IMHO It's done more so the adults think they are doing "something good/ important" rather than "just" being cute for the kids. Not making a value judgment on the message or what they are trying to do. Just my thought on why it is done.

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We do a movie day once a week, I'll either put on a few episodes of a favorite show like paw patrol, octonuts, or super why. Or some other show ff Netflix, sometimes it's an actual movie.
Other days if needed for transition coming inside before lunch I'll put a show on, for 20 min tops, so I can get lunch ready.

But in regards to old episodes I had to explain to my own kid why Jupiter was not a planet after he watched an episode of Magic School Bus

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ALLLL of this. I grew up on Arthur.. never once did I wonder about the teachers sexuality.

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