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News & Reporting

November 10, 2020

The following article is located at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2010/march/what-spongebob-cant-deliver-to-your-kids.html

News & Reporting, March 2010

Gleanings

What SpongeBob Can't Deliver to Your Kids

VeggieTales co-founder Mike Nawrocki and his kids enjoy mainstream TV, but it's lacking

Mike Nawrocki, guest blogger | posted March 17, 2010

My kids watch SpongeBob SquarePants every morning at breakfast. First my daughter, 11, as she's munching on Special K with berries before being driven to middle school, and then an hour later my son with his Honey Nut Cheerios as he's preparing for his day in the third grade. I suppose if I were a really good parent they would be reading Ezekiel 4:9 while they were eating, but Ally and Michael seem to be turning out okay despite their current routine. I also enjoy the show and watch it right along with them; for the most part SpongeBob is brilliantly written with great characters.

I understand it may be shocking to learn that the children of Larry the Cucumber do not always watch VeggieTales. But it's true. When they were younger, the TV was at times tuned to Arthur, Dora the Explorer, and Zaboomafoo.

Broadcast TV for kids has come a long way over the past couple of decades. When we started VeggieTales 17 years ago, I didn't have kids. But I remember thinking if I did, the only thing I'd let them watch was Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, because that's what I watched when I was a kid and they were still pretty much the same. Everything else seemed too violent, too sarcastic, or too crude. Fast forward to 2010 and it's not hard to find well-produced, age-appropriate content that teaches kids math, reasoning, spelling or manners. A fair amount of stuff I don't mind my kids watching.

So what's the problem?

What's missing, from my perspective as a Christian parent, and will likely always be missing from kids' networks like PBS, Disney, Nick and Cartoon Network is a biblical worldview — the assumption that there is a God who made us, loves us, and wants a relationship with us set against the backdrop of creation, fall and redemption. For Christians, nothing could be more basic to our understanding of how the world works. But for children's broadcast and cable channels, nothing can get you off the air faster.

What's missing is that much of the worldview our kids ...

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