Fred McFeely Rogers was a shy, somewhat awkward, and sometimes bullied child growing up in the 1930s. After going to college for what he called his “first language”—music—he prepared to enter seminary and study for the ministry. But on a visit home for Easter, he saw television for the first time. He hated it—people on the program were throwing pies in each other’s faces, and Fred found that demeaning. Nonetheless, he sensed instantly television’s capacity for connection and enrichment. That moment changed his life—and the lives of millions of Americans.
Fred Rogers, of course, went on to create Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which aired nationally for over 30 years. Beginning in 1968 and continuing until (and beyond) the end of production in 2001, untold millions of children grew up under Mister Rogers’ steady gaze and faithful care. Those children now make up much of the American public, and now many of them are flocking to theaters to see the documentary of Misters Rogers’ life, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Somehow, over 15 years after his death, we seem unable to stop turning back to Mister Rogers again and again—with a feature film that will begin filming in Pittsburgh this fall, and a biography that will be released in September. It seems we sense that Mister Rogers, whom we used to know so well, who used to seem to know us so well, may have something to say to us in our divided, contentious, often-painful cultural and political climate. Here are some of Mister Rogers’ teachings that could help us weather today’s ups and downs, stand up for what we believe in, and come together across our differences.
1. It’s okay to feel whatever it is that we feel
From 1955 to 1961, Fred Rogers was puppeteer and organist for The Children’s Corner, a popular, live, local Pittsburgh show that he co-created with Josie Carey. During his years on that show, Fred often spent his lunch hour taking classes—first at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (then called Western Theological Seminary) and later at the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied child development. It was through his studies that he met child psychologist Dr. Margaret McFarland, a member of the Pitt medical school faculty.
Margaret and Fred became good friends, and Margaret worked as chief psychological consultant for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood from the time it began until her death in 1988. It was Margaret who helped Fred get in touch with his own childhood memories, who helped him anchor the scripts, songs, and set of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in child development theory, and who said to him repeatedly, “Anything human is mentionable, and anything mentionable is manageable.”
In other words, whatever we feel, it’s okay to feel it—even if our feelings seem chaotic and complex. And naming our feelings, speaking them out loud, and exploring them with those we love are all good ways, as Mister Rogers might say, of growing on the inside.
2. But our feelings aren’t an excuse for bad behavior
The famous video of Mister Rogers’ 1969 testimony before a Senate subcommittee shows up on my social media feeds every time government funding for PBS or NPR is threatened. But while my friends and I are busy trying to score political points, it’s easy to miss the substance of the testimony itself.
The young Fred, just a year into the national run of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, doesn’t talk, as I once assumed, about ensuring that educational television is equally available in all zip codes. He sits calmly, speaks slowly, and talks about feelings.
Specifically, he talks about anger. He quotes, at length, his song, “What Do You Do with the Mad That You Feel?” which gives suggestions for how to channel anger: “punch a bag,” “pound some clay or some dough,” “round up friends for a game of tag.” His favorite part of the song, it seems, talks about what he calls the “good feeling of control”:
It’s great to be able to stop when you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong,
and be able to do something else instead and think this song:
I can stop when I want to, can stop when I wish.
I can stop, stop, stop anytime.
And what a good feeling to feel like this,
and know that the feeling is really mine,
know that there’s something deep inside
that helps us become what we can.
For a girl can be someday a woman,
and a boy can be someday a man.
Mister Rogers and his Neighborhood constantly affirmed the coexistence of self-expression and respect for self and others, and this was in no way a passing interest—the song that Fred quoted in his Senate testimony appeared in 38 episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, including an episode filmed 30 years later, in 1999.
Mister Rogers and his Neighborhood constantly affirmed the coexistence of self-expression and respect for self and others.
When Fred was asked in an interview toward the end of his career about television’s responsibility to children, he replied, “To give them everything that we possibly can to help them grow in healthy ways, and to help them to recognize that they can be angry and not have to hurt themselves or anybody else, that they can have the full range of feelings and express them in very healthy, positive ways.”