How Ms. Rachel is Shaping a Generation’s Worldview

Nearly a century after his debut, Popeye the Sailor Man is still remembered as “strong to the finish” because he ate his spinach. Popeye helped turn spinach into a childhood staple, increasing U.S. spinach sales by 33 percent in the 1930s—but the cartoon’s claims were based on a factual error. Spinach is not a significant source of iron. 

A century later, children’s entertainment is still infused with messages that shape what children believe and how they act, and those messages can be misleading.

Children’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel has a massive following, with over 20 million subscribers. She makes short videos for toddlers and pre-school aged children, explaining the world to them. Her videos cover topics like tooth brushing and potty training, and increasingly, they are covering certain political issues from a progressive point of view.

Ms. Rachel, whose legal name is Rachel Accurso, first drew recent attention after visiting outside Delaney Hall, an ICE detention center in New Jersey. Following the visit, Accurso posted photos and videos on Instagram of herself singing and speaking with detainees. In the post, she criticized current U.S. immigration policy, saying it amounts to “traumatizing precious children.”

Since the June visit, Accurso has continued to use her platform to comment on political and social issues. She weighed in on the death of Nolan Wells, a young black man who was found dead two days after he failed to return home with his white friends from a July 4 boating trip. The circumstances surrounding Wells’s death remain under investigation, and authorities have not yet determined the cause or manner of death. 

In early August, Accurso used her platform to endorse 12 progressive candidates, including several who have close ties to the Democratic Socialists of America. She also donated $3,000 to the campaign of Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim Democrat who is running for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat. Accurso has also faced criticism over her support for Zohran Mamdani and over an incident in which she said she inadvertently “liked” antisemitic comments on social media. 

When confronted for her activism, Accurso has argued that her positions are consistent with a broader concern for children: “It’s political to recognize the humanity of every child, every person, to want their human rights to be respected, and to support policies that reflect those beliefs,” she said. “I’ve always been political.”

Worldview Roundup

Ms. Rachel’s activism provides an interesting case study in several important questions about worldview and education, offering three particularly important reminders:

Worldview Matters

Much of Accurso’s content centers on nursery rhymes, phonetics, and first words. Through this content, she has built trust and a following around her stated concern for children. Her political commentary is the natural extension of her worldview and why she frames her political opinions and advocacy in terms of concern for children. 

Ideas are Not Neutral

Accurso has built a brand around concepts that seem neutral. Children, regardless of their background, need to learn phonics and other foundational language skills. But Ms. Rachel also illustrates how education often involves more than the mechanics of reading and language. Children also encounter stories, examples, assumptions, and ideas about the world around them. When political commentary is presented through a framework of caring for children, it creates an avenue for those ideas to be received alongside otherwise ordinary educational content. 

Education Has a Purpose 

Even where issues like immigration, race relations, or socialism may not appear in popular children’s songs, concepts such as acceptance, belonging, and diversity can. As children encounter these concepts, they will naturally ask what they mean and how they should be understood. Who answers those questions matters. If an influencer has earned the trust of both children and parents as a caring and empathetic educator, that trust can give greater weight to the ideas she communicates. 

Christians parents and educators will not always need to use explicitly Christian resources to teach concepts such as math and language arts. Yet Christians who understand the purpose of education should remain diligent in considering both the mode and message of the resources they use, and the effect those resources can have on their children’s hearts and minds. As their children’s first teachers, parents have a particular responsibility to ask careful questions about the people and ideas they invite into that educational relationship. 

The example of Ms. Rachel is not entirely new, as the story of Popeye illustrates. What is different is the speed, reach, and personal nature of the internet, which allows educational and entertainment platforms to shape children’s understanding of the world on an unprecedented scale. As their children’s primary educators, Christian parents must approach these resources with discernment.