I watched a documentary on Mister Rogers today called, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" and it affected me profoundly. I’m still not sure why. So much so, that I’m taking to a blog post to try to understand it. Mister Roger’s Neighborhood was on the air for 33 years and I was born/grew up right in the middle of it. (It began airing on television in 1968 and I would be born 10 years later, in 1978.)
Once, when I was a teenager, or young adult, my mom remarked how much I had loved watching Mister Roger’s Neighborhood as a child. I thought she was crazy because I could hardly remember watching it at all – and even if I did remember it (which I didn’t!), I would have thought it was un-cool to admit I had liked watching it anyway.
Fast forward to today. I’m watching this documentary and as they begin to show footage from the set, I felt like I was seeing someone that I had dearly loved but had inexplicably forgotten. I remembered virtually everything: the furniture on his porch, the change of jacket to sweater and dress shoes to sneakers, the feeding of the fish, the trolley, the knick-knacks on the shelves (like the castle; the tree-house; the brown, grandfather clock) that would eventually be the life-size set pieces for the imaginary world - the Land Of Make-Believe; a world filled with Lady Aberlin, Daniel the Striped Tiger, King Friday the 13th, (the terrifying Lady Elaine puppet!), Henrietta Meow-Meow, and all the others.
I remembered them all so clearly! Like I had only seen them yesterday, although it’s been years! But as I sat and watched this documentary, something else began to emerge – the realization that, although I had seen the show, I had somehow missed the message. In other words, I could remember what I had seen, but I had no recollection of what I had heard.
The messages I missed as a child were these: You’re special, just for being you; I like you just the way you are; you’re feelings are real and they matter; it’s okay to be scared; it’s okay to be different;
Maybe that’s why I was so affected by what I watched in this documentary. I wondered how could so much of the visual (i.e., superficial) things have “stayed with me,” yet the things that truly mattered were somehow lost on me? As a child, I needed those messages. I needed to hear that I was okay the way I was, but somehow, those messages fell on deaf ears. Here I am, 40 years later, still trying to learn that it’s okay to just be me; only to discover that the truth was there this whole time, I just couldn’t hear it.
I suppose it made me sad. It made me wish I HAD learned those lessons as I watched the show as a child. How different could my life have turned out if I had learned to believe in myself back then. But I can get lost in the “what if’s” and the “if only’s” of my past and I know that regret over what could have been is useless.
I suppose it also made me grateful. I’m grateful that my 40 year old ears are finally opening and hearing the message that I couldn’t hear before. I’m grateful that there were (and are) people like Fred Rogers who want people to know that they matter.
I know there are reasons why I likely couldn’t hear those messages as a child, but I also know that it doesn’t matter how old we are, we still just want to know that we matter. I think that’s what love, time, attention and listening does for others – it shows them that they matter. I hope I can be a Fred Rogers someday, too.
