My dad discovered Kim Possible on Disney Channel when I was young enough to see a high schooler as a role model. He recorded the “Friends and Foes” marathon on VHS and let me watch episodes on lazy Saturdays. Sometimes, we’d set up stools in the kitchen (small pillars to my young frame), and Dad would cry on the other side, “Kim! Shego trapped me here!”

And then I’d handspring over the obstacles, expertly missing laser beams by inches. Henchmen reached for me but they were easy to avoid. Then, I’d pull open the prison doors and free Dad from the place the evil Dr. Drakken and Shego had trapped him in. Victory was ours!

Okay. So maybe I didn’t handspring. And there might not have been laser beams. Or henchmen. But in my mind, I was always one call away from saving the world.

I have loved cartoons ever since those early years. Phineas and Ferb. Danny Phantom. DuckTales. I still find myself caught by their imagination and creativity. Something, also, that comforts me: As I grow older, these shows remind me that you can learn from young heroes just as much as older ones. They do the right thing not for money, or because it’s convenient, or to keep a secret. They do the right thing because they feel it intrinsically, a certain innocence driven by determination.

An innocence, I think, that’s starting to shift.

Lately, the topic of sexuality has been present in a lot of decisions across the nation. Mandates. Laws. Social media spikes. And yes—TV shows.

The realization of this increase—particularly with children’s TV—began with my obsession with Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. This awareness has increased the more I watch kids shows that have come out in the last 10 years.

Miraculous is about 2 superheroes, Ladybug and Chat Noir (or, in English, Cat Noir), who save Paris from villains created by the Big Bad of the show, Hawkmoth. When the two aren’t saving the city, they transform into Marinette and Adrien, two normal teenagers navigating the hazards of middle school. Part of the show’s irony is that Adrien/Chat Noir likes Ladybug, but Marinette/Ladybug likes Adrien, and neither of them know each other’s superhero identity. Depending on the situation, this can be funny, confusing, or downright heart-wrenching. But there’s the rub—this show is about 14-year-olds. A lot of fans forget this because as the seasons continued, the show matured in plot…but things like stalking, kissing, pining, cheating, etc. are central to the story, and its exhaustive focus on this has caused me to quit watching more than once. I have to ask myself that, as much as I enjoy watching Miraculous, why is a kids show so hyperfocused on middle school love lives?

A few years later, I fell in love with Gravity Falls, The Dragon Prince, The Owl House, Star verses the Forces of Evil…and started to notice the same thing. Even Avatar: The Last Airbender (which came out around the same time as Kim Possible) echoes this theme of young love. Except, in Avatar, one of the characters says to other, “we’re still in a time of war. We need to wait until the war is over to figure out these feelings.” The modern tween, however, does not grow up with the message of reflection and process.

One example of this is The Owl House, in which a girl named Luz travels to another world and makes friends and enemies, slowly unraveling the secrets of this twisted fairytale land. I have watched TOH three times over. It’s one of my favorite comfort shows, and I definitely didn’t cry at the end of Season 3 episode one (#LetHunterHeal). The show follows many valuable thematic elements, like communication, trust, the reality of hardship, and the effects of children’s fiction on teens. The irony is not lost on that last one, though, because it follows this trend. In the second season (spoiler alert, sorry) Luz starts dating another female in her group. (Yes—the same-sex attraction and rise thereof in children’s media deserves its own analysis, but for this article, we’re focusing on the age element.) The thing is, Luz and her girlfriend are 12 years old.

Star Verses the Forces of Evil is another hilarious, comforting show (until it final season). Marco and Star’s duo-dynamic rival Kim and Ron’s. And yet, this show also spends a lot of energy focusing on the will-they-won’t-they aspect of their friendship. They date other people, they end up cheating with each other, etc. But Jackie’s line, “Marco, you were an adequate boyfriend” made me realize how toxic normalizing middle school romance can be—because Marco can’t be anything other than adequate. He’s only thirteen years old. He’s still discovering what kind of person he wants to become.

This brings to mind some lyrics from AJR’s song “Turning Out”: “Am I ready for love?/ Or maybe just a best friend/ Should there be a difference?…Maybe I’m stuck on what I see on TV/ I grew up on Disney/ But this don’t feel like Disney…/ You say I turned out fine/ I think I’m still turning out.” It also reminds me of that line from Song of Songs 8:4, “O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you: Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right.” No one should have the burden of that formative self-discovery while maintaining the effort of a romantic relationship. It’s too easy to develop that self- discovery around another person, rather than oneself.

In Gravity Falls (my favorite cartoon to watch on rainy mornings), there’s an individual named Grenda who is obviously a biological male who dresses as and identifies as a female. Note that Grenda’s age is never specified, but the character is assumed to be 12 or 13. I can hear some protests saying “Bugs Bunny cross dressed too!” Yes. So have many cartoon characters since the beginning of cartoons. However, Bugs Bunny is an ageless, immortal, agent of chaos. Grenda is a child.

What does this all add up to? Some of the most popular children’s TV shows recently decided that it’s okay to tell pre-or near-pubescent kids that questioning their biological makeup and sexual feelings, and to act on those feelings ASAP, is completely normal and should be celebrated.

I can hear a few protests now, so let me address them.

This is not an “in the good old days” article. No children’s cartoon is completely sinless in this regard. Many of the characters in Kim Possible wear crop tops. Danny Phantom also spends plot time on the love lives of 14-year-old characters (and you know Danny’s 14 because the theme song says so. Is it stuck in your head now? Sorry.) Many of the Disney Princesses are canonically young teens.

But the fact that this theme has been repeated over and over—increasing especially in the last 15 years…it reflects a culture willing to place sexual and romantic responsibilities on children. And then wearing it like a badge of honor.

I consider what it would have been like for my younger self to watch these shows.

Do you remember what middle school dating was like? Not like the soul-mate idealism, that’s for sure. Too young to drive, so your parents had to chauffer you around on dates. Early breakups. Never wanting to remember that time because it was too awkward. In addition, dating at that age also creates a tension between expectation and reality when it comes to romantic affection. Kids who start dating in high school are barely physically developed enough for anything more than kissing. It’s a long wait to do anything that arises from that desire—marriage, sex, living together, etc.

I think about me at 13, who’d had a crush on the same guy for 8 years. The match wasn’t super healthy, and I said “enough” and worked to view our friendship from a different angle. I knew that neither of us were mature enough for something as effortful as that. (Also, he was dating someone else). A year later, I met my fiancé, and even at 14 I knew that we weren’t ready to handle the responsibilities of a relationship. Trauma grows us all plenty, but healing and growth takes time too. Selflessness needs to be honed. We started dating when we were 16, and even so, we’ve had plenty of ups and downs.

Now, imagine that I was 12, still crushing on that other guy, and watched MLB or The Owl House or Gravity Falls, and was told through its characterization and plot that “Oh, it’s perfectly normal for me to feel like this and act on those feelings at my age.” What would it have been like to hear “just confess that you love them” from all these sources?

Honestly, I shudder to think. As much as I love these shows, there are elements that I would not want to learn from at a younger age.

What does the future hold for our kids? How can we help our friends and younger siblings process their feelings in a wise and healthy way, without looking towards the media to be told how to feel? How can we teach the next generation about discernment and truth? These are questions to consider as our world continues to stretch the scope of the mind and heart.

Verses that I thought of when I was writing this:

Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Ephesians 6:4 “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

Colossians 3:21 “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.”