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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

I feel like I'm the only parent on planet Earth that really doesn't like Bluey. Every time I watch it(which is often, my son likes it), it just seems to be promoting bad behaviour at the expense of the dad(like many other shows to be fair - looking at you Peppa Pig), including physical violence(one episode the kids decide the dad now has a stomach ache, so they punch him in the gut - and the dad just plays along with it, it's never commented on as a bad thing). And the mum keeps making reductive comments and making fun out of the dad, even though he literally drops everything the second his kids want anything.

I don't know, I just don't get it. When people describe it as wholesome to me it feels like the opposite - it shows an unhealthy relationship between the kids and the parents, and I don't feel like it teaches my son any valuable lessons at all.

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They all make fun of each other quite often in the series in ways that can take the seriousness out of real-life parallels.

I find that in a sense the show takes the "bumbling dad" and "uptight mom" stereotypes and kind of shows them in a more realistic way that says "hey, it's alright... they care a lot about each other and they figure out how it all works together."

A kid hits dad in the groin and he doesn't try to strangle them (a la The Simpsons) he absorbs a common mistake and rolls on. The mom is a bit uptight, but doesn't helplessly groan in the background like Marge. Sometimes these qualities are shown as strengths, other times as weakness... there are entire episodes where the dad's irresponsibility gets saved by mom's uptight nature... or where mom is too stressed and dad needs to take over and be the clown for a bit.

IMO it's not a show that's meant to model ideal behavior, but it's about how families and relationships can work despite not always being ideal.

> including physical violence(one episode the kids decide the dad now has a stomach ache, so they punch him in the gut

They are pretend playing. There is no indication Bingo meant to actually harm her dad. I pretend fight and let my toddlers beat me up, but I am sure they know only to do that when pretending.

The core of pretend playing, is pretending. Bluey very clearly punches her dad square in the stomach, he lets out an audible sound of pain, and......nothing happens. I agree that maybe Bluey didn't actually mean to hurt her dad - but the way the scene plays out she clearly does and she isn't told about it, the dad just takes it. Because the dad is portrayed as a (in this episode - literal) punch bag who has to accept everything the kids do. No valuable lesson was shown or taught here.

My opinion anyway.

> but the way the scene plays out she clearly does and she isn't told about it, the dad just takes it.

I did not interpret Bandit feeling any material amount of pain in the scene. More like feigning it for the kids’ entertainment. Also, it was Bingo that punched him (the 4 year old).

> Bluey very clearly punches her dad square in the stomach, he lets out an audible sound of pain, and......nothing happens.

What would you like to happen? I’m not sure I understand here. I’m completely ok with Bluey’s dad not retaliating. Being a Dad means sometimes, you have to take a punch.

No one said anything about retaliating - a simple "look you hurt dad, you need to be careful" would have been 100% sufficient, and as another comment said - it would have been a nice counter lesson to one of the previous episodes about rough play.

>>Being a Dad means sometimes, you have to take a punch.

Sure - but as a dad you are also responsible for making sure your child understands that hurting other people is not ok, and they shouldn't do it again, pretend play or not.

I don’t think it would make terribly compelling children’s television to just show the children misbehaving and the dad disciplining them.

Bluey is firmly in the category of shows for 2-4 year olds, they have to be educational at this point, I'm sorry but that's my firm stance as a parent. There will be plenty of time for pure entertainment where bad behaviour doesn't get corrected later - at this stage a 3 year old can't tell good from wrong, and the message the show sends categorically cannot be "let's punch dad in the stomach because it's funny".

Look at Peppa pig(which has a whole host of its own issues, but whatever) - any time Peppa and her brother do something wrong they get an explanation why it was wrong, how it could have hurt or made someone else sad, they apologise and sing/dance about it - most of the time it teaches a good lesson while still being amusing for little kids.

Bluey and her sister are 6 and 4 years old at the start of the show, now 7 and 5. I don’t think the show is made with 2 year olds in mind. Maybe 3.5 and up, but a lot of the concepts are for the 5+ kids in my opinion.

Good children's programming often presents characters somewhat older (in affect, if not truly in age, e.g. Big Bird) than the target audience, to act as role models. You don't want a typical 3-year-old to look to a typical 3-year-old as an example for what to aspire to, you want them to look at well-developing 4-, 5-, and 6-year olds. This works well anyway, since children often look up to older kids and are interested in what they get up to.

This is correct. Kids generally don't like watching shows for or starring "babies" (really kids their own age) unless they're very small.

Sure, but the content of Bluey is not going to understandable to a 2 year old. I would guess 3 is when some basic understanding starts, but 3.5 to be safe.

In my experience, below 3.5 or so, more sing song-y and basic repetitious stuff is digestible. Bluey episodes have a plot and lots of dialogue that has to be followed.

>> I would guess 3 is when some basic understanding starts

My son is 2.5 and he absolutely understands what's happening in cartoons. He will comment on action saying clear things like "daddy he hit him in the head!" And then you have to pause it and actually explain it's not nice and you shouldn't do that. I wish shows clearly aimed at small children didn't have those moments.

That is my point. Bluey’s stories may require showing a bad action, but a too young toddler will not have the capability to understand the broader context and resolution.

That... very much depends on the 2-year-old. Maybe true on average, IDK.

I have two daughters about the same age and Bluey and Bingo (6 and 3) and we play like that. I have found Bluey has the most positive view of fatherhood of any show my kids have watched. In fact, I was so taken aback by it that it stuck out to me in a very noticeable way, in contrast to everything else.

I have two data points for you:

My wife and I banned Bluey in our house a couple years ago. We use TV as "quiet time" for our kids (currently ages 3 to 9) after lunch, replacing the time when they used to nap, and Bluey seems to make them go crazy. I haven't even watched any of the episodes, so I can't object specifically to any of the content; we just observed a consistent, counterproductive effect on their behavior.

My neighbor, another dad of two toddlers, expressed something to me a few months ago that was similar to your opinion.

I'm honestly stunned by the overwhelmingly positive comments on this thread, and I'm wondering if I should actually try watching a couple of the episodes mentioned here.

> I'm wondering if I should actually try watching a couple of the episodes mentioned here.

Yes you absolutely should. One of the things I really like about the show is it promotes imaginative play. It addresses things like how to deal with being bored. Shows like paw patrol and stuff have zero imaginative anything. It's one of the things I love about Bluey.

Yeah, one of the resonant things i've seen in the show (as a non-parent) is that it emphasizes good family play, it's not a very "chill" show in that sense.

I probably won't ever have kids, but having had a bit of a tough childhood, Bluey is actually pretty stellar viewing even as an adult.

How come your kids are watching a show that you haven’t even seen a single episode of?

My wife is a stay-at-home mom, so she's mostly the parent with the kids in the middle of the day. I think my wife first showed Bluey at the recommendation of one our friends. When I'm working from home, I'm not in the same room as the TV, but I do hear when things turn to mayhem so I think I was the first to suggest that we stop showing Bluey.

I’m sorry. I think my question above was an overstep from me.

No problem. I could see where the question came from.

A lot of the episodes can definitely have high energy moments (or the whole episode) where the kids are running around screaming, yelling, and playing. But, if you filter those episodes out, there are still dozens of high quality calm and thoughtful ones.

I too do not get the hype. I definitely understand why parents would enjoy it - it’s realistic and relatable and tries to inspire parents to do more.

But for young children? It seems to enforce bad habits, encourage rampant consumerism (the infinite amount of toys for every occasion), implicitly “play along” with bad behavior while ignoring dealing with punishment (at least in the episodes I watched), and depict fairly unrealistic playtime scenarios.

For younger children at least, I think PBS content does a way better job. As mentioned elsewhere, for toddlers, you can’t go wrong with Daniel Tiger. For older children, I recommend checking out Rosie’s Rules and Alma’s Way.

I wish Bluey hadn't introduced the concept of a "bush wee" to my kid, I've had to explain that no, we can't pee in someone's yard in the middle of our busy neighborhood...

This is a culture difference. The U.S. seems peculiarly against this compared to most of the rest of the world. It seems especially acceptable for kids most places. We may have to accept that we're the weird ones on this. It's just pee.

Aren’t there any trees or bushes that aren’t privately owned?

Sit down for this one - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_That_Owns_Itself

I don't see how there are unhealthy relationships. I will agree that Bingo's behaviour in Backpackers was unacceptable - I personally would have gently nudged her with a "don't play so rough", which would have been a great way to reverse the lesson from Yoga Ball.

You are not the only one.

I also think that it shows an unhealthy relationship between the kids and the parents, and was banned in our household

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