To anyone who knows her, it should come as no surprise that Courtney is responsible for sending me this link to all things Mister Rogers. She thought I’d dig the “guide to talking to children,” which features some of the rules for the show’s writers.
Truth is, the entire thing is worth reading and thinking about. (And be sure to watch the linked videos. With a hanky nearby, preferably.)
There’s only one thing I disagree with, and that’s the opening sentence: “The world could really use Fred Rogers right now.” But the world has always needed Fred Rogers, because the world has always been pretty stupid. Or, as the man himself put it somewhat more delicately, “not always a kind place.”
I suppose there are a couple of reasons I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The show debuted when I was about eight months old—so I pretty much grew up with it—and I had a childhood that, well…let’s just say it needed help building the “solid emotional foundations and the ability to cope with life’s problems” that Rogers was shooting for.
“When I was a child,” writes Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, “I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.” That’s all well and good, of course, but, as you eventually learn when you become a man—or a woman—Truth is Truth, no matter how old you are. Mister Rogers believed it, lived it, and spoke it. And I’m betting I could still learn a thing or two from him today.
