Road to Avonlea

I watched this show in the 90s and couldn’t wait to watch it with my children. It’s still very sweet and enjoyable, but I am surprised at how nasty and spiteful the people are to each other. The girls and women in particular are terribly unkind. I don’t want my daughters watching this and thinking this is the way women should behave. Sarah Stanley gets revenge when her cousins tease her instead of turning the other cheek and this isn’t corrected. Also, the children are disobedient and aside from losing their supper or having their ears twisted, there are no great moral consequences for their defiance. In fact, the children are often rewarded for doing the wrong thing (like trespassing). In one episode, the teenaged Felicity lies to her parents and sneaks off to an event to see and older boy. She ends up kissing another boy. Tame stuff by today’s standards, but not exactly wholesome. Additionally, it’s a little strange that the children call adults by their first names. That certainly wouldn’t have happened in the 1900s. My final gripe about the show is the church - aside from a scripture on the wall, there’s nothing visibly Christian about the building. There’s no cross, nothing to show it is a place of Christian worship. So while I enjoyed this show before I was a believer, I’m looking at it with the eyes of a Christian parent and I’m not sure that it’s entirely benign for kids to watch.

This show won awards in the 90s for a reason. It's not just for kids but adults also. The acting is great, the music is memorable, the scenery is amazing, the costumes are perfect, and the stories are entertaining.