ABC Family Channel. Is this for families? Seems a little risque for the whole family.

Last night I had the opportunity to catch up with a couple of shows on ABC Family channel. The more I watched the shows the more I wondered WHY does this channel call itself ABC Family. I mean when I heard ABC Family I thought of wholesome shows like "Little House on the Prairie" or "7th Heaven" or if they wanted to get a little racy, maybe some "Dawson's Creek".  When I hear Family Channel, I think of shows that the whole family could watch. I'll bet I'm not the only one. But lo and behold the two biggest hits are shows that are big on the sex lives of teenagers. The original series, "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" would be better off and more descriptive of the show if they had called it, "The Sex Life of the American Teenager". I have NEVER heard the word sex so many times in my life. Seriously, I'm going to count how many times they say it in an episode and post it here on my blog. My kids don't talk that much about sex now, much less when they were in school. Not to say that there aren't a lot of kids talking about what they are doing in that area. They are, but this show only seems to focus on that. All of the kids are either doing it or thinking about doing it. The one girl who was a purity ring wearing virgin had sex one time with her boyfriend, that she'd been in love with for years, then her father dies in a plane crash and she blames it on the fact that she had sex. She said that to her mother and boyfriend so many times in the episode that it ended up on "The Soup"! 

  The not so funny thing is that the "lead" character on the show, Amy,  started out the first season being pregnant from having sex one time. Her parents were very upset, but tried to be supportive. She hid the pregnancy from them for awhile, probably typical of most teenagers in her situation. Her friend Ben, who became her boyfriend, was also supportive even though he was not the father and she wouldn't have sex with him. OK how many of you know a teenage boy like that? Really?! In any case, the show focused on all of the different teenage characters and their race to have sex or their moral issues of not having sex, of course eventually they all do. So OK the teens are allowed to be a certain amount of dumb on this issue, but THEN you have Amy's MOTHER getting pregnant as well and she isn't sure if it's her soon to be ex-husbands baby or the man she'd been seeing after hubby moved out...oh yeah, he moved next door. How convenient. So now we have irresponsible adults who lectured their teens about protection. Of course Amy jumped on that one. Hey, the parents are hypocrites after all. So again I have to ask, "Secret Life" or "Sex Life"? on the FAMILY channel....this does not compute! Then you add the show Greek, which I don't watch, about college fraternities and sororities, I don't HAVE to watch to know what happens on that one!

  Now, we have the newest addition to the lineup at ABC Family called "Pretty Little Liars". The title alone could give you an idea of what this might be about. So far I have seen the only two episodes to air to date. It is already very popular. I actually kind of like the show, it has Lucy Hale on it and I've been a fan of hers since "Privileged". So far, we've had one character get caught shoplifting, now her mother is sleeping with the cop so that she won't get charged. Then we have another character who sleeps with a man who turns out to be a new teacher of hers...she tries to get out of the class but can't and the chemistry between the two ends up with her sleeping with him again. We also have a girl whose older sister's fiance has kissed her and would like to do more with her. Then we come to another girl who seems to be confused about her sexuality and has met a new girl who seems intent on helping her explore her lesbian side. Cue the token gay. There is a gay friend on Secret Life as well. He hasn't gotten to have sex on the show yet. One of the only ones on the show who hasn't.

  Now the show is ostensibly about a girl who disappeared a year ago, and was the leader of this group of "Queen Bees", whose dead body was discovered towards the end of episode 1. Meanwhile, the girls have been getting texts from someone who seems to know an awful lot about them and who signs the texts "A". which happens to be the first letter of Ali's name, the girl who is dead. Weave in a newly arrived blind Jenna who has moved back to town after a year. Jenna has a motive that the girls don't want to share as it will implicate them in the accident/prank that they pulled on Jenna that left her blind. In their defense the girls, with the exception of Ali, didn't know what was going to happen and Jenna was not the target, as far as they know. Secrets, Secrets, Secrets.....again ABC FAMILY. What FAMILY is gonna watch this together. Unless you are talking about parents and their teens, which probably won't happen in a lot of households. In fact, my kids don't like "The Secret Life..." which is funny since I sense this is geared towards them. I think my daughter will probably like "Pretty Little Liars". So are these characters lives something that some kids might compare their own lives to? I don't know, I just still find myself wondering why this channel is called ABC Family. Without family programming it seems like a silly name. I would think they'd call it ABC Teen or something like that. 

  Oh well....I guess I'll just have to keep wondering. I'll see you later, I have some shoplifting to do and a cop to have sex with so that my kids can stay out of jail. See ya!