I need to preface this article with some information that will invest you in my defense of a children’s show because without it this might all seem a bit silly. Just trust me when I say that you need to be a believer in “Bluey” and that defending the show is necessary for many reasons.

For those of you that haven’t watched the show, “Bluey” is an Australian-born cartoon that centers around an anthropomorphic dog of the blue heeler variety named “Bluey” and the Queensland-based “Heeler” family. Her family includes her father “Bandit,” her mother “Chilli,” and her little sister “Bingo.”

I came across the show after seeing random clips on the internet and trying to find something to distract my son while I get work done, I put the show on for him. He zoned in immediately despite his young age, but more bizarrely is the fact that after a time, I began zoning in myself.

In my nearly 40 years on this planet, I’ve seen many kids’ shows come and go, and most of them are incredibly bad, but “Bluey” had a special quality to it that could only come about from careful writing from a very real but wholesome perspective.

“Bluey” is unique in that it manages to make a society of human-like dogs into a very real world but as seen from a child’s perspective. The way the parents interact with one another and the things they discuss are things you might have experienced growing up but had little context for. As an adult, you may very well understand what’s happening or what’s being discussed or displayed, but Bluey, Bingo, and your child may not get the full picture. To be sure, the brunt of the show’s attention is put on the children, but it doesn’t leave the parents out. It’s as much for parents as it is for kids.

This gives “Bluey” the ability to teach kids in a way that other shows can’t. It allows serious subjects to be discussed in a way that children can wrap their heads around and understand while giving parents some really great advice and lessons to ponder as well. As a new dad, this show has done a lot to make me feel less isolated in my own fears and anxieties about parenthood and helped give me the direction of a “yes and” method of playstyle alongside creative moral guidance, the same kind Bandit uses with his daughters.

Some great examples can be seen in the video below.

In this modern age, you would think that a show that delves that deeply into real-world issues would get preachy and politically biased, but “Bluey” manages to shed modern demands of choosing a side and makes episodes completely devoid of political or social commentary. In fact, the closest the show gets to displaying a controversial idea is when Bluey and Bingo accidentally recreate the theory of evolution during a game, but it’s not even pushed as being real or unreal. It’s even balanced with a mention of Heaven at the end. Outside of that, the show smiles on everything from the nuclear family to military service.

I can try to describe this show to you all day, but you won’t get a full grasp of how special it is until you watch it yourself. If you have young children, I can’t recommend it enough. Both you and your child are going to get a lot out of it.

But naturally, anything this wholesome and good has to be attacked and for all the wrong reasons.

Lately, the Heeler family has come into the crosshairs for being “rich.” The evidence of their wealth is seen in their Queensland, Australia, home which according to research on the area’s housing market should cost anywhere between $1 to $2 million. This has led some viewers to claim that the only reason Bandit and Chilli can be such great parents is that they’re wealthy enough to do so.

Let’s squash both this idea and this argument.

In the show, Bandit is an archeologist and Chilli is an airport security sniffer dog. For all intents and purposes, they shouldn’t have this level of wealth. Watching the show, it’s clear that they actually aren’t very wealthy. Bandit and Chilli are always fixing things around the house themselves, not hiring anyone to do it. During the episode “Pizza Girls,” the wealth difference between Bandit and his brother Stripe is creatively displayed through the use of both real and toy cars.

The running theory is that the Heeler’s own their home due to it being passed down through Bandit’s parents. It’s an old house, which explains why they’re constantly fixing it up and making changes. The market in real-world Queensland exploded over the past decade, making the in-world Heeler home explode in value as well.

So Bluey’s parents aren’t good parents because they’re rich. In fact, you can see the effect of rich parenting on Bluey’s cousin Muffin who is shown to be the brattiest kid of the bunch.

But even if the Heelers were rich, their wealth wouldn’t play into their parenting style. In fact, you see Bandit and Chilli quite often steer their kids away from electronics and ditch the television for toys and games that encourage them to use their imagination. They reinforce this by playing these games with their kids, oftentimes fully taking on characters to allow the kids to further sink into the game. Along the way, Bandit and Chilli use these games to reinforce good behavioral practices and life lessons the girls can take with them.

What makes them good parents isn’t money, it’s dedication. The only advantage you could say that the family has is that Bandit works from home, which is why you see him with the girls a bit more often than Chilli, but in this post-pandemic world, this could go for a lot of parents.

You might still be wondering why I’m making a big deal out of this.

For one, I find the idea that only rich parents can be good parents insulting. I was raised in a poor environment and my parents weren’t bad parents by any measure. They taught me many things from self-reliance and hard work to good moral grounding and self-awareness, and that wasn’t easy to do due to me being an angry, stubborn child. Rich or poor, good parenting boils down to your best effort to be a good parent.

Making good parenting into a class issue is probably one of the most dangerous things we can do for our society as this belief could damage the confidence or ambitions of parents who want the best for their kids or give people the idea that wealth makes the parent. This idea can’t stand or be given any merit.

But also, I want to defend this show because I don’t want one more good thing to fall to the pressures of modern mainstream socio-political posturing. The idea that the Heelers have to exist within a certain status in order to be considered acceptable is ridiculous and I don’t want the showrunners to believe they have to introduce beliefs and concepts into the show in order for it to be acceptable for viewers.

They don’t.

I want this show to be successful as it is in hopes that more showrunners will make shows like it. “Bluey” is an oasis of quality in a sea of hyper-ideological narratives and political suggestion. Moreover, I want innocence to be able to exist. So many forces in today’s world attempt to infect it, or take advantage of innocence, that seeing it is like seeing a unicorn.

Not everything has to serve a modern agenda or political purpose. These are shallow things, and “Bluey” clearly strives to reach much deeper; the innocence of childhood and the humanity around it…as represented by dogs.