Although the Anne of Green Gables series is Fair for Its Day in several areas, given that the novels were written in the early 20th century and set within that time frame, the series inevitably contains elements that, while perfectly fine for its time, can baffle many modern day readers.
- Young Anne is celebrated specifically for being smart, creative and ambitious. Early in House of Dreams, Anne tells a former student that she's given up "dreams of immortality" and she's realized the limits of her artistic talent. It's a little jarring.
- Gilbert Lampshades this in Anne's House of Dreams, saying, after Anne points out how wasted Leslie's potential is being impoverished and stuck with her idiot husband, that some people would consider a B.A. and burgeoning established magazine writer to be "wasted" as the wife of a poor country doctor.
- There are intelligent and ambitious female characters who have careers in The Blythes Are Quoted: Penelope Craig, child psychologist; Alma Winkworth, who worked in a beauty shoppe; and Susette King, sub-editor of The Enterprise. However, the last two characters are portrayed as having become disillusioned with their careers, which could be social commentary on gender inequality.
- The name Diana being considered "heathenish", and the word "heathen" itself being used can come across as this.
- Marilla refers to hair dyeing as "a wicked thing to do".
- While undoubtedly well-meant, Marilla's methods for child-rearing, at least before she gets used to Anne and her particular nature, can strike the modern reader as surprisingly rigid and lacking in understanding. Her attitudes reflect both strict Presbyterian values and the Victorian notion that children should be unquestioningly respectful and obedient to their elders to the point of being self-effacing. Early on, she has no qualms about telling Anne to "hold her tongue" when she wants her to be quiet. When Anne tells off Rachel Lynde for criticizing her looks, Marilla is outraged and, while admitting that Rachel is too outspoken, insists that her being "a stranger and an elderly person and my visitor" are "very good reasons" for why Anne should have been respectful to her (despite Rachel having been disrespectful to Anne first), and is adamant that Anne apologize. (Though to her credit, her first response is to call out Mrs. Lynde on it.) All that said, it is lampshaded that Marilla doesn't really know what she's doing, having no experience with kids.
- More specifically, Marilla's attempt at inculcating a sense of humility and level-headedness in Anne by basically denying her "luxuries" (like fashionable clothes) goes so far that even Rachel Lynde privately called her out on it.
- Adopting an orphan for the purpose of having more help around the house or farm is considered a perfectly acceptable motivation. Even Matthew and Marilla, who fully intend to provide the child they adopt with a good home and education, are in part motivated by the idea of Matthew having the extra help that he requires. Mrs. Blewett, who almost took Anne off Marilla's hands in Green Gables, also wanted help around the house, and while Marilla felt concerned about how Mrs. Blewett would treat Anne, no one questioned Mrs. Blewett seeking to take in a child to get some extra help. Today, this kind of motivation to adopt would be considered unacceptable.
- "Home children" are mentioned several times throughout the series, and though mention of their being abused is treated negatively, nobody's at all surprised by it. Mary Vance is the most extreme example: the entire neighborhood knew she was being horribly abused by her "caretaker", but nobody bothered to do anything about it. This was, sadly, a real phenomenon in Canada in the 19th and 20th centuries; between the mid-1800's and the mid-1900's, thousands of children were sent (both legally and illegally) from Britain to Canada to be used as manual labor. Many children suffered horrific abuse and neglect at the hands of their adoptive families.
- Rachel Lynde is aghast when she finds out Matthew and Marilla intend to adopt a child servant — not because she objects to the practice, but because she worries about the child's potential behavior. She mentions a case where a home child "sucked eggs", and one where the kid put strychnine in the well and poisoned the whole family — though she notes that the child in that instance was a girl, "as though poisoning wells were a purely feminine accomplishment, and not to be thought of with a boy."
- Anne of Avonlea features a lot of debate about teachers whipping their students; Anne is opposed to the practice, but only manages to gain Anthony Pye's respect when she finally gives in and whips him for his misbehavior (to her own discomfort).
- Davy's mistreatment of his twin sister Dora would possibly be seen as bullying today, but it is often treated humorously and Anne tends to dismiss it as "boys will be boys" stuff. She only becomes upset with Davy when he tells her a lie.
- In Rainbow Valley, Mary Vance uses the N-word rather casually at one point. While she tends to speak very roughly in general, it goes without saying that her using that particular word wouldn't be acceptable at all nowadays.
- Rilla and Kenneth Ford share one kiss before he leaves to fight in World War I, and as a result, everyone from her mother to her friends think she and Ken are engaged. Rilla is 16, by the way, to Ken's 22 or so.
- That's more due to Rilla promising that she won't kiss anyone else until his return from war, rather than the actual kiss.
- Rilla raises a baby, mostly by herself, from age 14. The baby's mother had died and his father was overseas fighting, so Rilla opted for taking him with her instead of letting him die. The entire scene where she brings Jims home is rather reminiscent of a child bringing home a stray kitten; her father tells her that she is on her own and that if she cannot take care of him, he will go to the orphanage. And this is just accepted by everyone around Rilla. Very hard for modern readers to swallow. She does well, aided in part by the family maid Susan and a parenting book she holds great faith in. The entire family comes to love Jims and she raises him until the age of 3-4, but no adult really offers to help beyond Susan.
- Justified in context. Rilla isn't terribly scholastic and not much of a housekeeper sort. The book says explicitly that the baby would be staying, but her parents were hoping that they could get her to 'rise to the occasion'. Once she set her mind to it, she could have called upon the family adults for aid and chose not to.
- However, this still wouldn't be something expected of a 14-year-old today and would prompt investigation from social services unless said teenager was the biological parent, hence the Values Dissonance.
- French Canadians are usually portrayed as backward or comic servants, such as the wife-beating hired man Lazarus from Magic for Marigold. Marilla in Anne of Green Gables actually refers to the French hired boys who understandably quit to pursue better paying jobs in the United States as "stupid little French boys." It is assumed that the "true Canada", particularly Prince Edward Island, is Anglo-Saxon and Protestant to the core, even though French settlers predated British ones by many years. This makes the fact that the anime adaptation's only TV broadcast in Canada was in French quite ironic.
- Another example of ethnic prejudice: when Anne explains that she bought the dye that turned her hair green from a peddler, Marilla comments that she has told her "never to let one of those Italians in the house! I don't believe in encouraging them to come around at all." Anne specifies that he was in fact a German Jew (admittedly this is treated as Anne somewhat missing the point).
- This later gets brought up in Rilla Of Ingleside, where Anne talks to Susan about the incident, and Susan says what you'd expect about people from a country you're at war with.
- Another minor detail from the first book: Anne admiringly describes Diana as "ever so much fatter" than herself, as if this gives Diana the advantage in beauty. By modern beauty standards, and with modern concerns about the effect of weight on health, the skinny Anne would have the advantage. Back in the day however, the main way one would get fat is with expensive foods, meaning being fat made one look well-off.
- In Rilla of Ingleside, the sole pacifist character is treated by everyone (including the narrator) with contempt — and pacifism is regarded as outright treasonous. This can be jarring to many readers, today — who had lived through such unpopular wars, such as the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. The anti-German sentiment also doesn't help.
- In Anne's House of Dreams, Mrs. Harmon Andrews makes disparaging remarks to Anne about her age just before her wedding to Gilbert. She says that when she was Anne's age, that was "the first corner," but reassures her she still looks quite young. Anne is 25.
- Mr. Phillips' romantic interest in (and eventual courting of) Prissy Andrews. In modern times, teacher-student relationships are severely frowned upon even when both parties are legal adults, which Prissy would not have been — given the age at which Anne's class graduated, Prissy would have been at most 16. The book treats this as nothing remarkable, only mildly condemning his inattentiveness to the other students as unprofessional.
- The age of consent is 16 in Canada as of 2023, but teacher-student relationships are illegal.
- In Rainbow Valley, it is treated as necessary for the usually pacifist Walter to fight the school bully in defense of his mother's honour — despite his mother not being in any particular danger. There is also the implication that it would've been cowardly for Walter to not defend his mother's honour through physically fighting someone. Nowadays, physically fighting someone is viewed as necessary only if you or someone else was in any particular danger.
