![]() ![]() King’s biography shows that Rogers took his bearings from experts who changed the way we view child psychology-not only Benjamin Spock but also Erik Erickson and especially Margaret McFarland, known as a giant in the field. Sadly, as a parent, this remains my first impulse-to wave away fears, supposedly to encourage resilience. Rogers cut through the trappings of a Victorian-inspired culture that preferred children remain quiet, or at least deal quickly with any unpleasant feelings. (As one song advises, “When you feel so mad that you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four.”) The show gave her a language for understanding her inner world and taught her steps for addressing her fears. A brightly colored cartoon tiger helped my daughter learn that other people sometimes feel frightened and angry and don’t know what to do. Together, we learned a lot from watching episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, a program made by Fred Rogers Productions, a foundation that carries on his legacy of educating children in social-emotional intelligence. Reading about his early childhood, one gets the sense that Rogers was a highly sensitive person-something I knew nothing about until my first child was born and I struggled to make sense of how terrifying the world was to her. He was one of those rare figures who sees some essential truth before everyone else-in this case, the importance of cultivating social and emotional intelligence in young children. Rogers never let go of the wounds of childhood, especially the fears and anxieties. He was nicknamed “Fat Freddy” and bullied in school, and significant health concerns made his mother overprotective-she had him chauffeured to and from public school in a fancy car. ![]() ![]() Raised as an only child-the richest kid in the working-class town of Latrobe, Pennsylvania-Rogers started off miles away from the children who would end up watching his programs. Only rarely did he explicitly reference God on television, but his deep conviction that people were made in God’s image propelled him through the world. As the recent documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? makes clear, his ordination was central to his life and work. Rushing from theology classes back to the office to work on his first show (called Children’s Corner), he was already beginning to integrate his two great interests: God and the emotional lives of children. That’s what I had always hoped it would be.”Ī few years into his career in children’s television, shortly after the advent of public broadcasting, Rogers began attending Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. “Until television became such a tool for selling,” he once mused, “it was such a fabulous medium for education. He wanted to equip them to play a healthy part in a flourishing neighborhood. Rogers was the first to truly envision a world where technology could be used to educate children, to help them develop a healthy sense of themselves as both loved and safe. This was supposed to entertain children? Given Rogers’s kindly public persona, it’s easy to forget the simple truth that anger over how the world treated children was a driving force in his life. He recalled watching a man get a pie thrown in his face as the audience laughed. He went to college and got a degree in music, but it was his first encounter with the new format of television that changed his life. Truthful About Feelingsįred Rogers was the very definition of bivocational, although I wonder if he would agree with that assessment. But early on in The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, author Maxwell King identifies the central miracle of his life: that he successfully married the sense of duty and service to God of his Presbyterian faith with the call of the artist, educator, and creator. Rogers worthy of a detailed biography is precisely how unique this strong sense of calling remains in our world, especially outside of traditional religious institutions or authorities. Quite possibly he was none of these things, but something infinitely more valuable and complex: a human being, made in the image of God, who had a near crystal-clear view of his vocation. You can paint him in a variety of hues: as a saint, as a genius, as otherworldly, as too soft and sentimental. Fred Rogers-perhaps you know him by the title “Mister”-is a cultural icon, a walking meme, a man forever frozen in sweaters and white sneakers, a gentle smile on his face. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |