Yet those same kids want their parents to rekindle their romance. Every couple with young kids knows how hard it is to find time to prioritize one another amid the constant barrage of kid needs. In “Fancy Restaurant,” a sweet episode where Bingo and Bluey set up a pretend date night for their parents, we see another example of how the show esteems family, marriage, and the realism of modern parenthood. see also “Grandad”), while it’s abnormal for them to be getting manicures. It’s funny because it’s normal for dads to dig out tree stumps together (interestingly, this isn’t the only episode featuring a man taking an axe to a stump. Rather than androgynous “parents,” Bluey clearly has a dad who is male and a mom who is female.Ĭonsider the season 2 episode “Stumpfest.” Though the episode’s comic gag depicts a group of masculine, axe-wielding dads getting their fingernails and toenails painted by their precocious, hard-bargaining daughters, the joke works only because of the show’s insistence on gender differences. Yet even as Bluey intentionally reflects these changing roles, dad and mom are by no means interchangeable. The Heelers’ intrafamily love overflows to bless others-including viewers like us, who are uplifted by the way the family consistently uplifts and serves one another. Dad and mom both happily step up to get done whatever needs getting done. Chilli, meanwhile, has a part-time job outside of the house. In Bluey, Bandit works but is also highly involved with the kids, packing their lunches, helping with laundry, transporting them to and fro.
This isn’t the family of Leave It to Beaver, with domestic roles demarcated across the traditional lines of 1950s suburbia. In addition to simply delighting in the sights, sounds, and silliness of a flourishing family dynamic, Bluey nails the nuances of how parenting is changing.
But if parents watching Bluey are inspired to pause their tasks or put down their devices more often, making time to engage their kids’ imaginations and participate in their curious play, that’s a good thing.
Can any modern mom or dad devote as much time as Bandit does to indulging the endless games and free-play activities of his children? Probably not. It’s a joy to watch, even if we watch it aspirationally. Each relationship configuration (husband to wife, mother to daughter, siblings to one another, etc.) is unique and creates a glorious web of multidirectional, mutually serving, mutually delighting, sacrificial love. To watch an episode of Bluey is to bask in the loveliness of what God made when he created family: a husband and a wife, who become a father and a mother, together bearing and raising children in an environment where loving, stable bonds enable all involved to thrive. Bluey doesn’t see family as a plot device, setting, or means by which it can make important points about this or that current issue.
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