Raised on Sitcoms
Yes, I was that kid who loved TV. And honestly, I still am.
I grew up in a tight, familiar world that felt complete because it was all I knew. White suburb. Homogenous school. The kind of environment where you don’t notice what’s missing because you’ve never been shown something different.
My parents worked incredibly hard to give me what we all believed was the best education possible. They were doing exactly what loving parents do, making thoughtful decisions with the information and opportunities they had. I am deeply grateful for that.
What I've come to understand is that my education was strong in many ways and limited in others. Not wrong. Just incomplete. There were perspectives and lived experiences I simply hadn't encountered yet. What I could not have known then, living a wonderful life but a limited one, is how much my perspective would need to grow. Becoming a white mother to Black children made that impossible to ignore.
Over time, my understanding of the world has expanded, and I am so grateful. Parenting stretched me in ways nothing else could. Books gave me language and new worlds. Friendships made it real. And some of that growth came through… TV sitcoms.
Many things have shaped me, and I continue to seek out ways to better understand the world and the people around me. But I think back often to what shaped me as a child, before I even realized I was curious, before I knew I wanted… or needed… to expand my world. And what I keep coming back to is this: so many of those early lessons came from a television screen.
Storytelling is powerful because it builds empathy before proximity exists. I learned that early, not in a classroom, but on a couch, in front of a television.
Here are the shows that shaped me as that young white girl growing up in a loving but limited world.
The Cosby Show
Yes. I know. Bill Cosby’s crimes are real and devastating. I do not excuse them.
But I cannot erase the fact that The Cosby Show was part of my childhood. It was one of the first times I saw a Black family portrayed as joyful, intellectual, loving, musically expressive, and deeply connected. An upper-middle-class family in Brooklyn. Parents who were professionals. Siblings who teased each other but showed up, without fail.
For a young white girl whose understanding of Black life was often shaped by limited and skewed narratives in mainstream media, this show mattered. It disrupted the limited narrative I had absorbed. It showed me a family centered on education, culture, and love. That expansion shaped me.
A Different World
When Denise Huxtable went off to college and A Different World spun off, I fell in love with a member of the Cosby family all over again. An HBCU campus. Professors who demanded excellence. Students debating politics and identity. Storylines about apartheid, racism, colorism, friendship, ambition.
It felt like a weekly seminar in history and culture that I was not receiving in my own school. The fashion. The hair. The confidence. It was a window into brilliance and complexity that simply was not part of my curriculum.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The clothes. The theme song. The swagger. But mostly, the family. The Banks were warm, a little chaotic, and completely grounded. Strong parents. Siblings who teased and protected in the same breath.
When Will arrived, they did not panic. They made room. The roots stayed strong, but the branches stretched. The Banks showed me that family can be both solid and expansive. That sometimes you choose who gets added to the tree, and everyone grows because of it.
I love that television is still shaping me. These shows came into my life as an adult. Still expanding me. Still widening my lens.
The Bernie Mac Show
Bernie Mac breaking the fourth wall, talking straight to the camera, pulling us into his chaos and love. It was hilarious, yes. But it was also tender.
A Black uncle suddenly parenting three kids. Discipline and devotion living side by side. It reminded me that humor is often how families survive hard things. It felt familiar and new all at once.
Black-ish
We watched this as a family, and it might be one of the clearest examples of storytelling as education. Systemic racism explained through humor. Generational differences unpacked at the dinner table. Black-ish never handed out digestible answers to complex questions. The writing was too smart for that. Instead, it invited curiosity. It invited expansion.
Bonus: the Johnson family has boy-girl twins, just like ours. That connection made it even sweeter. It’s streaming now on Netflix. Take a peek and see what you think. I truly love this show.
Insecure
Insecure is the creation of its writer and star Issa Rae, and this show could not be a more perfect example of a woman owning the screen. Issa Rae’s voice felt modern and intimate. Messy friendships. Self-doubt. Ambition. Crenshaw as a character in itself. It reminded me that specificity is what makes stories universal. You could not help but cheer for this lovable, awkward young woman coming into her own power.
I want to be clear that these shows did not teach me “the Black experience.” There is no single version of that to learn.
What they gave me was something more foundational. They expanded my imagination. They interrupted stereotypes I had absorbed without even realizing it. They humanized people I had never met, in places I had never been, living lives that looked nothing like mine.
And they did it while I was sitting on my couch in my pajamas.
Now, raising Black children of my own, I feel even more deeply the responsibility of the stories we tell and the ones we choose to consume.
That is the quiet miracle of storytelling. It gets inside you before your defenses go up. It builds empathy before proximity exists.
I am so grateful for the writers, the creators, the actors who made these worlds. People who showed up and told true, specific, joyful, complicated stories about their own lives and communities. They had no idea a little white girl in the suburbs was watching, heart cracking open a little wider with every episode. But she was.
And she still is.
What stories widened your world?
Love this, Katie!
So thought provoking, Katie. I think ROOTS was one of the most amazing programs ever produced for television. I read the book because of the televisions show and it changed me in my understanding of black history. Henry Gates Jr.’s FINDING YOUR ROOTS has been an enlightening show that humbles many of its participants. I know these aren’t sitcoms, but they’re shows that have changed my experience as a white person living in America. It’s an interesting exercise to go back and think about old shows. CHEERS was a favorite in the 80’s and 90’s with unique personalities and story lines. ALL IN THE FAMILY was groundbreaking for its audacity and satire on prejudice and its spin offs of THE JEFFERSONS and MAUDE. Norman Lear changed the playing field, IMO.