I grew up with shows like “Suite Life of Zach and Cody,” “That’s So Raven,” and “Wizards of Waverly Place.” Then, there was “High School Musical,” “The Thirteenth Year,” “Camp Rock,” and “Read it and Weep.” The late 90s and early 2000s were a good time to be a child. But now, children’s television, particularly Disney Channel, suck. The television shows are based on stereotypes, the jokes are so dumbed down that they’ve become mind-numbing, and the writing is embarrassing. On one level, it’s encouraging because I figure that if the writers of “Ant Farm” can be successful, then I’m going to have a great writing career because I’m certainly as good as them, and (I dearly hope) better too.

So maybe that sounded kind of arrogant but let me explain a bit more. I was playing a board game with my lovely grandmother.My brother had “Ant Farm” on in the background.I glanced at the television for a few seconds. A few seconds turned into several minutes as I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the horror that was unfolding. Two blonde teenage girls were at the mall. One was dressed as an elf and clearly working in a Christmas store, wrapping presents. The other was wearing baggy pink pants, a baggy pink jacket, a pink baseball cap, and gold chains. The first girl expressed some sort of irritation with the second girl’s outfit because who wouldn’t? The second girl said something along the lines of “You said we were rappers! Give me a beat, yo!” Then she proceeded to pull out a red beet and said “Just kidding! I already have one!”

Stereotype of the dumb blonde: check! Dumbed down joke in the form of a pun: check! Embarrassing writing: check again!

Moreover, each show has the same stupid storyline based on overused formulas. There is the talented main character, usually a young girl. Then, there’s the inanely stupid brother. Next, we’ve got the father who is always in the kitchen, eating, and the self-absorbed mother. There’s probably a smart kid in there somewhere and someone who’s downright unusual… not stupid, just weird.

All of these characters showed up in “Wizards of Waverly Place.” Alex was the talented main character, Max the stupid brother, Jerry and Theresa Russo, the ever-eating father and self-absorbed mother. Justin was the smart one and Harper was the weird one. But “Wizards”was pretty successful, right? I mentioned it at the beginning as one of the good Disney shows. Yes. Except Disney has taken these archetypes and repeated them over and over and over again in every single show they’ve done since. The inanely stupid brother becomes the dumb blonde dressed as a rapper. The smart kid is the best friend instead of the brother. The ever-hungry dad is the ever-hungry uncle and the self-absorbed mom is a teacher. There’s probably a weird kid in there somewhere. Sometimes, the talented female lead is a talented male lead. And so on, so forth.

But what if we’ve just gotten older and grown out of all our favorite shows and that’s what makes the new ones seem so terrible? What if we’re remembering them as better because we were young and appreciated that kind of sense of humor? No. Here’s why… I have since seen a few of the old Disney shows that I grew up with (Not that watching “Suite Life”and “Raven” are my primary past times) and they were genuinely funny. Yeah, they were kid funny and kind of cheesy but they weren’t full of puns, stereotypes, and easy-to-swallow themes. They dealt with real problems that real kids dealt with and they had realistic role models. They weren’t the garbage that we’re feeding our kids today.

And why are we feeding our kids garbage? Because we underestimate them. We think they need to be coddled and protected from the real world. We want them to grow up with the unrealistic belief that each and every one of them can grow up to be famous pop stars. We want them to believe that each and every one of them is a special little snowflake and can do extraordinary things. We want them to believe that the world isn’t such a bad place after all.

And yes, we should encourage our children to pursue their dreams. We should make them feel loved. But we should not lie to them about how the world works. We need to prepare them to enter the world and handle whatever life is going to throw at them. And teaching them to see the world through stereotypes and watered-down, easy-to-fix problems isn’t going to do it.

And for the record, it’s not just Disney. It’s all the major children’s networks; Disney, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network. They are all feeding our kids garbage.Inanely stupid jokes, harmful stereotypes, and simplistic storylines, all sugar-coated in feel-good endings and half-hearted lessons. We need to stop underestimating our kids and start giving them realistic stories with realistic characters who have realistic problems.

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