We like to think of youth as a carefree and innocent time. But who are we kidding?

For most of human history, child mortality was rampant. Now, on top of quarreling families, schoolyard bullies and monsters under the bed, many children have suffered acutely from their parents’ economic distress. Children of jobless parents are more vulnerable to psychological problems and trouble in school. One 9-year-old started pulling her hair out after her father was laid off, Michael Luo wrote in The Times.

“The extent that job losers are stressed and emotionally disengaged or withdrawn, this really matters for kids,” Ariel Kalil, a University of Chicago professor of public policy, told The Times.

With the grim reality these days, it is no surprise that even children’s entertainment is filled with dark stories and flawed characters.

In the Spike Jonze movie “Where the Wild Things Are,” based on a book by Maurice Sendak, a boy named Max discovers a world populated by beasts, becomes their king, and finds that his new subjects are as rife with human failings as the family he left at home.

The recent animated films “Coraline” and “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” both based on children’s books, also paint multi-layered and bittersweet portraits of family life.

“This kind of honest, realistic assessment of human relationships has gone missing from far too many supposedly grown-up movies,” A.O. Scott of The Times wrote.

The Walt Disney Company is taking another look at that most squeaky-clean of icons, Mickey Mouse. In a video game, Epic Mickey, he will have the chance to be “cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic.”

“I wanted him to be able to be naughty - when you’re playing as Mickey you can misbehave and even be a little selfish,” Warren Spector, the creative director working on the game, told The Times.

In Epic Mickey, the mouse starts to resemble a rat as he misbehaves. But in the picture book series “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” the protagonist, Greg, often evades punishment.

“I’m trying to find a way to earn money without doing any actual work,” Greg says of his approach to his lawn-mowing business. The series is controversial among parents. The author, Jeff Kinney, thinks kids understand the message. “Even my kindergarten child understands that Greg is being naughty, and that he shouldn’t act like him,” he told The Times.

And that’s the moral, for adults : children, while still impressionable, are more sophisticated than many grown-ups give them credit for.

“I think it can help parents tune into what kids know and how they think,” Dr. Joshua Sparrow, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, said of the “Wimpy Kid” books. “It captures what a child is able to get and what’s beyond their reach, and how you have to adjust your expectations because they are still a work in progress.”

WARNER BROTHERS PICTURES / The movie “Where the Wild Things Are” is based on a children’s book, but has dark themes.