Katie’s Musings: Mr. Rogers

I’m not a very frequent crier, but there are two things that are guaranteed to get to me:

1. The part in the 7th Harry Potter Book where he’s about to go meet Voldemort and he gets out the Sorceror’s Stone and all the people in his life who have died appear around him and his Mom says, “You’ve been so brave.”
2. Mr. Roger’s final speech when his show ended.

I’m a Mr. Roger’s fan.
Actually, no, that’s an understatement.
I count him among my life heroes.

I’ve seen a bunch of Mr. Rogers stuff pop up recently because his show, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, just had it’s 50th Anniversary.  And it seems like I’m not alone in my emotional attachment to the man.  Everyone seems to feel wistful and nostalgic when it comes to him and his little public television show.  In our modern culture of fast pace ambition, of impossible beauty standards, of relationship games and disconnect, angry words and reactionary violence, we long for someone to like us exactly as we are and to readily and easily tell us so.  Requiring nothing of us in order to be worthy.

But I would argue that the most important thing Mr. Rogers taught – and what someone needs to take his place in teaching our children and QUICK – is emotional intelligence.  AKA that emotions are part of being human, and not one of them are bad and the important thing is to be able to accurately identify them and then express them in productive, helpful ways.   And my goodness…. we need that.  If we made developing and cultivating emotional intelligence a priority in our schools, our homes, our workplaces (because we adults really need it as well…) I can guarantee that the world would look different.

And it’s sacred work.  It’s biblical, even.  The Gospel of Mr. Rogers sounds pretty darn familiar:  love your neighbors and attempt to understand them, difference is not scary but human, it’s ok to be sad, it’s ok to be angry, it’s ok to be precisely who you are because you are loved for exactly that.  Mr. Rogers took the biblical gospel (he was a minister after all) and put it into language that children of all ages could latch onto.  And that’s powerful stuff.  We only have to listen.

His final speech of his final episode goes like this, and it says all this better than I could:

“I’m just so proud of all of you who have grown up with us.  And I know how tough it is some days, to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead.  But I would like to tell you what I often told you when you much younger:  I like you just the way you are.  And what’s more, I’m so grateful to you for helping the children in your life to know that you’ll do everything you can to make them safe and to help them express their feelings in ways that will bring healing in many different neighborhoods.  It’s such a good feeling to know that we’re lifelong friends.”

(PS I just rewatched the video to transcribe this.  Waterworks.  For real.)