Those who weren’t around when Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was on TV may find it a little hard to understand why it appealed to us growing up.
A cursory glance at it would simply show a man sitting around and talking very softly and slowly before a little trolley took us to a puppet show. And while those puppets had personalities, they were often more low-key than what we would see from muppets like Elmo or Oscar the Grouch.
But the more that people understand who Fred Rogers was and he was about, the easier it is to understand why we loved and, let’s be honest, needed him.
The fact that we only ever called him Mr. Rogers should give a hint as to the level of respect children had for him.
And as Mr. Rogers told NPR, this had to do with the genuine way in which he addressed them. He said, “Every one of us longs to be in touch with honesty…I think we’re really attracted to people who will share some of their real self with us.”
It also helped that this respect cut both ways.
While Mr. Rogers certainly had a lot to teach kids and was compassionate in the way he spoke to them, he did as much listening as he did talking.
When a child spoke to him, they could know that he saw their feelings as valid and that the things they were passionate about (like, for instance, breakdancing) were worth exploring.
And this respect meant that he saw a need to tackle topics that other children’s entertainers might shy away from.
As The Washington Post reported when children didn’t know what to make of matters like Robert Kennedy’s assassination in 1968 or a rash of high-profile outbreaks of violence in the early ’80s, he would level with them and admit to feeling sad, scared, and angry about them too.
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But even then, he used something his mother told him to give them a reason to be hopeful, saying, “‘Always look for the people who are helping,’ she’d tell us. ‘You’ll always find somebody who’s trying to help.'”
Although those who saw the show growing up might not need this explanation, the show’s smaller mysteries might still elude them.
There were certain routines Mr. Rogers had that he never seemed to explain, like why he always tossed one shoe aside as he he took them off or why he always announced that he was feeding the fish when he approached the tank.
In the latter case, Chrissy Teigen recently took to Twitter to offer an explanation.
As the story goes, although many children could see perfectly well that he was feeding the fish, one who couldn’t worried about them being properly cared for.
Teigen, it turned out, was exactly right about why Mr. Rogers did this because he did receive a letter about the fish.
In a book chronicling the letters sent to him, he shared one stating that five-year-old Katie, who was indeed blind, would cry every time he didn’t say that he was feeding the fish.
The letter would inspire a short segment on the show about how good it is to take care of animals and children when you have the ability to.
As Mr. Rogers wrote in the book , “Over the years, I’ve learned so much from children and their families. I like to think we’ve all grown together.”
His interactions with young fans were definitely a way that Mr. Rogers led by example.
His goal was to help us all become more caring neighbors and the time he took to answer any little questions that children had and to thank them for nice gestures they showed to him certainly did a lot to help us along to that goal.