07/06/2026
๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐ฅ ๐ก๐ค๐ค๐ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐ฉ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐จ๐๐ง๐๐๐ฃ. ๐๐ค๐๐ค๐๐ฎ ๐๐จ ๐ก๐ค๐ค๐ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐ฃ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ข๐๐ง๐ง๐ค๐ง.
Let me be clear from the start: I do not support the inclusion of LGBTQ content in children's educational media. Not in cartoons. Not in programmes targeting toddlers. Not anywhere aimed at young children. A child's educational space should be safe, age-appropriate, and centred on the child, not shaped by adult agendas from any direction. That is not a debate for me.
What I find interesting is that even within this conversation, people who identify as part of the LGBTQ community are pushing back on Sesame Street for the same reason, because there is a difference between acceptance and using a children's platform to introduce concepts that children are not developmentally ready to process. That distinction matters.
But here is the part of this conversation that nobody is touching:
The media does not raise children alone. We do.
Every adult in a child's daily life, parent, guardian, relative, teacher, neighbour, is shaping that child's understanding of the world long before any screen comes on. What children see at home, what they hear in conversation, who they live with and how those people live, that is the first classroom. It runs 24 hours a day and no regulator can touch it.
So when we say "the media is corrupting our children," I want us to also be honest about what the child is absorbing at home. You cannot make certain lifestyle choices as an adult, place a child in the middle of that daily reality, and then point at a television programme as the source of confusion. The child is watching you before the television even turns on.
Protecting children from content that is not appropriate for their age is right. But protection cannot stop at the remote control. It has to extend to every adult in that child's life asking honestly: in the choices I am making, have I thought about the child? Or only about myself?
Children deserve to grow up as children. That responsibility belongs to all of us, not just media executives.
Ogunnika Abosede | Educator & Founder, DEAIF