The Children Are Watching Us was de Sica's first serious attempt at realism. An adaptation of a novel by Cesare Giulio Viola, the literary and elaborate script provides a vivid illustration of his attitude of that time: he wanted his films to be “a word in favour of the poor and the unhappy”.

The film is seen from a child's point of view a boy watches his mother having an affair with another man and notes his father's reaction to it-the story being set against the realistic background of Italy in the years after Mussolini.