Speaker 1: Have you ever tried to explain this world to children?
Speaker 1: I have kids, two of them. Have you ever sat
Speaker 1: down with a kid and tried to explain why there
Speaker 1: are Nazis marching in the exact place where you took
Speaker 1: them to the farmer's market and waited in line for
Speaker 1: papoosas Have you ever tried to explain how a person
Speaker 1: who lies, assaults, insults, grifts, fakes and hates can be
Speaker 1: elected into one of the most powerful jobs in the world.
Speaker 1: Have you ever tried to explain to them why they
Speaker 1: should be good people, How they should be good people
Speaker 1: in a world where there is so much bad, where
Speaker 1: they see people who look like them shot by police,
Speaker 1: murdered by vigilantes, run over at rallies. I have, And
Speaker 1: even though my whole job as a writer involves being
Speaker 1: so called good with words, there are no words good
Speaker 1: enough to explain why things are the way they are
Speaker 1: and what we should do about it. It's too much,
Speaker 1: it's too big, it's too overwhelming. Maybe you don't have kids,
Speaker 1: maybe you don't have to make this world makes sense
Speaker 1: to children. So I ask you, how then, do you
Speaker 1: make sense of it to yourself? Do you hide? Do
Speaker 1: you tell yourself that everything is fine. Do you convince
Speaker 1: yourself that you're doing everything you can? And do you
Speaker 1: make excuses for when you're not? I mean, do you
Speaker 1: know what to do like today, like right now, in
Speaker 1: this moment to help. Do you know how to be
Speaker 1: a good person? Are you a good person? Because me,
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure about any
Speaker 1: of us. What does a good person in this world
Speaker 1: even look like? I mean, what would they tell you
Speaker 1: if you could find the time to sit down and
Speaker 1: listen to them? Did you ever have a scary dream?
Speaker 1: What did you do about it? There might have been
Speaker 1: one good guy on television of all places. Did you
Speaker 1: tell the people you love about it? The people who
Speaker 1: love you, this old white guy in a zip up
Speaker 1: cardigan and blue tennis shoes who played with puppets. When
Speaker 1: I was a little boy and I had a scary dream,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'd get some paper and crayons and I would
Speaker 1: draw pictures about my dream. I mean, is this the guy, like,
Speaker 1: is this quiet dude staring into a camera and talking
Speaker 1: slowly about crayons? Is this the guy who can stand
Speaker 1: up to our very worst? And sometimes that would help
Speaker 1: so much that I was able to get back to
Speaker 1: sleep real soon. Mr Rogers made it seem so easy,
Speaker 1: so casual, to know how you're feeling, to be comfortable
Speaker 1: in your own skin. But it's not easy. It takes work.
Speaker 1: And that's actually what Mr rogers Neighborhood was all about.
Speaker 1: He was showing us how to do that work. Really
Speaker 1: helps to talk about the way you feel, because everybody
Speaker 1: has feelings all the time. In a time like this,
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers has something we desperately need. I think the
Speaker 1: real genius of Mr Rogers having done his show and
Speaker 1: having it be targeted towards children is that what he
Speaker 1: has done is created a template for just how to
Speaker 1: recognize your feelings and know what it is, which is
Speaker 1: basically how you get to all the other stuff. It's
Speaker 1: how you grow. He taught us how to plant seeds.
Speaker 1: He taught us to plant seeds, seeds that were are
Speaker 1: supposed to blossom into healthy, safe, caring, loving feelings for
Speaker 1: ourselves and then for all of our neighbors. And he
Speaker 1: he had three decades on television to show us, to
Speaker 1: convince us, to guide us into making the kind of
Speaker 1: world he dreamed of. And yet here we are in
Speaker 1: a world that is well it's not Mr Rogers neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I'm Carvel Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast
Speaker 1: about Fred Rogers from I Heart Media and Fatherly in
Speaker 1: partnership with Transmitter Media. I'm a writer. I got my
Speaker 1: start by writing about music for MTV and Pitchfork in
Speaker 1: places like that, But for a few years I was
Speaker 1: also the parenting advice columnists for Slate, and every week
Speaker 1: we would read dozens of letters from desperate, frightened, weary
Speaker 1: parents wondering how to raise good people, how to be
Speaker 1: good people, And so I think a lot about what
Speaker 1: stands in the way for them for us. But the
Speaker 1: other thing is I grew up as a complete TV nerd.
Speaker 1: I mean TV might have had more of an impact
Speaker 1: on how I understand the world than any adult in
Speaker 1: my life. And so now that I am the adult,
Speaker 1: the parent, even I find myself wondering what TV has
Speaker 1: to say to my kids, to our kids, about what
Speaker 1: we can do about the world we live in. And
Speaker 1: so that's how I get to Fred Rogers, a guy
Speaker 1: who made TV about this very question. You might have
Speaker 1: noticed there is an explosion of Mr Rogers nostalgia going around,
Speaker 1: But I'm curious about it like, why now Fred has
Speaker 1: been dead for almost twenty years and there are suddenly
Speaker 1: movies and documentaries and book Why is it that generations
Speaker 1: of adults are all collectively having this nostalgia moment right now?
Speaker 1: I was really interested in feelings as a kid because
Speaker 1: nobody talked about feelings. But I seem to have so many.
Speaker 1: This is Ashley c Ford. She makes her living by
Speaker 1: thinking deeply about how people feel and trying to communicate
Speaker 1: something about how that impacts their inner lives and outer lives.
Speaker 1: I am a writer of essays, articles and a memoir
Speaker 1: and I am a Fred Rogers enthusiasts. What does that
Speaker 1: mean of Fred Rogers enthusiast? Well, I think of being
Speaker 1: an enthusiast as being a person who likes a thing
Speaker 1: from many, many different angles. I remember being very very
Speaker 1: little and like a nap time when I went to
Speaker 1: a babysitter. She would put on Mr Rogers and I
Speaker 1: was like, YEO, this is not going to put me
Speaker 1: to sleep. I'm fascinated, but I loved Mr Rogers and
Speaker 1: so I was like, if you want to put me
Speaker 1: to sleep, you better put on popa Beaver, story Time
Speaker 1: or something. Because Mr Rogers ain't it, lady. He talking
Speaker 1: about all kinds of stuff that I'm interested in. You know,
Speaker 1: lots of kids have had that experience. I mean millions actually,
Speaker 1: but actually has talked about how as an adult she
Speaker 1: found help from Mr Rogers. I feel like, at different
Speaker 1: stages of my life, I have come to understand the
Speaker 1: man and his impact. And I almost want to say
Speaker 1: the genius of his empathy. Like we talk about genius
Speaker 1: and so many capacities when it comes to other things
Speaker 1: and things that we think of as you know, quote
Speaker 1: unquote hard, but empathy is really hard. And talking to
Speaker 1: people about empathy and getting people to understand empathy is
Speaker 1: so hard. And this man was, I believe, a genius
Speaker 1: at it, and not just because of innate talent or inclination,
Speaker 1: but because he valued it and he committed to it
Speaker 1: and he worked really hard at it. This I love
Speaker 1: this idea of being a genius of empathy. And to
Speaker 1: be a genius of something like empathy feels like a
Speaker 1: new idea because we tend to think of the realm
Speaker 1: of feelings as not requiring work or clarity or discipline.
Speaker 1: And problem, yeah, yeah, here's our problem. And I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about that I want to. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: first in your own experience, what makes empathy difficult? Like,
Speaker 1: what do you find empathy difficult or something that requires
Speaker 1: work rather? And if so, what makes empathy difficult? Empathy
Speaker 1: is difficult because people don't have empathy for themselves. M
Speaker 1: let's talk about empathy. That word is used everywhere today,
Speaker 1: so much so that it seems to have lost its power,
Speaker 1: because actually it's a pretty radical idea that we can
Speaker 1: so closely identify with another person that we can understand
Speaker 1: their feelings. A lot of us aren't even comfortable with
Speaker 1: our own feelings anger, fear, sorrow, maybe even certain kinds
Speaker 1: of happiness. And if we're not comfortable with our feelings,
Speaker 1: then we're not really comfortable with ourselves, are we? So
Speaker 1: then how can we be comfortable with other people? When
Speaker 1: Ashley came back to Mr Rogers as an adult, she
Speaker 1: realized that these were the questions he was grappling with. Yes,
Speaker 1: watching the show did feel like being with an old,
Speaker 1: caring friend, but there was way more going on there
Speaker 1: than just the warm and fuzzies. The first episode is
Speaker 1: my favorite episode of Mr. Rogers, and I think what
Speaker 1: Mr Rogers did was established something in that first episode
Speaker 1: when he sings the song I like you as you are.
Speaker 1: I like you as you are exactly and precisely. I
Speaker 1: think you turned out nicely, and I like you as
Speaker 1: you are. I do. The first time I saw the episode,
Speaker 1: though I wasn't a kid, I was an adult. I
Speaker 1: had had a really, really tough day and I decided
Speaker 1: to take a bubble bath and have a glass of
Speaker 1: wine and just be in the tub and take care
Speaker 1: of myself. But I didn't want to be like alone
Speaker 1: with my thoughts, because you know when you have like
Speaker 1: those sort of stressful, hard days that you're like, I
Speaker 1: need to watch anything, I need to do anything, because
Speaker 1: being in my head, my head is not a safe
Speaker 1: space right now. And so I was like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna set up the computer. I'm just gonna play something.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what can I play that would
Speaker 1: just be so gentle? What can I watch that would
Speaker 1: be so gentle that it just it won't make right
Speaker 1: now out harder for me? And I just thought of
Speaker 1: Mr Rogers. Clicked the first episode of Mr. Rogers, and
Speaker 1: I'm crying in the bathtub. I like you, Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: I like you? What I felt like I rediscovered a
Speaker 1: piece of myself, like a part of myself, which happens
Speaker 1: as you age, like you start to think about all
Speaker 1: the things that you've cast off for reasons that when
Speaker 1: you look back, or like that was to fit into
Speaker 1: something else. And I miss that thing and I want
Speaker 1: it back. And I'm sitting there and I'm listening to
Speaker 1: this song I like You as you are, and I'm remembering,
Speaker 1: Holy sh it, I used to like myself. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to change you or even rearrange. I used to
Speaker 1: really really like who I was, And I don't feel
Speaker 1: like that right now. And it was the beginning of
Speaker 1: trying to like myself again. Like you, Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: I like you? Oh you, I do? I love you?
Speaker 1: Like you as you are. You like what we've done
Speaker 1: in here, We'll be right back. That first episode of Mr.
Speaker 1: Rogers Neighborhood aired nationally in nineteen and the world in
Speaker 1: it felt probably a lot like the world does now, scary,
Speaker 1: k aotic, and unspeakably violent. There was the war in Vietnam.
Speaker 1: Dr Martin Luther King Junior's assassination and the protests and
Speaker 1: uprisings that came after. Anger and confusion hung over a
Speaker 1: lot of adults, and Fred's revolutionary move was to recognize
Speaker 1: that their kids were probably feeling it too. The very
Speaker 1: first week of the show when it premiered, had to
Speaker 1: do with the ruler of the make believe land, King
Speaker 1: Friday the thirteenth, building a wall to keep out people
Speaker 1: and ideas that he didn't want in his kingdom. And
Speaker 1: now that's creepy when you think about it. In David
Speaker 1: being Cooley knows a big TV moment when he sees one.
Speaker 1: He's watched a ton of them. He's been a television
Speaker 1: critic for over forty years. And yeah, he loves the Sopranos,
Speaker 1: and he loves Breaking Bad, and he loves all the
Speaker 1: prestige television about people murdering one another and dissolving bodies
Speaker 1: and acid or whatever. But he's also fascinated with the
Speaker 1: first week of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and the things Fred
Speaker 1: Rogers was able to communicate in a land of make believe.
Speaker 1: Lady Elaine has been up to her tricks again, and
Speaker 1: she's moved the Eiffel Tower on the wrong side of
Speaker 1: the castle, and the tree has gone away from over
Speaker 1: here to the middle, and the clock is over here
Speaker 1: in the fountain. Well, it's just all mixed erect. He
Speaker 1: must be really upset. He's furious about it, and he
Speaker 1: has established border guards in the neighborhood. Make believe that
Speaker 1: sounds like a war. The people in his kingdom. The
Speaker 1: other puppets, the other characters send out balloons. Boy, do
Speaker 1: you ever look nifty with all those blows over the
Speaker 1: wall that are nice supportive balloons, like you know, we
Speaker 1: like you, we want to get to know you. And
Speaker 1: they decide a wall and a barrier isn't a good thing. Now,
Speaker 1: this was, you know, and it's dealing with Vietnam essentially,
Speaker 1: but it still resonates, I mean much more than I'm
Speaker 1: comfortable with it. Resonating. Vietnam was just one in what
Speaker 1: seemed like a laundry list of dark and difficult news
Speaker 1: items in because earlier that summer, Bobby Kennedy was shot
Speaker 1: and Fred Rogers asked for a prime time special because
Speaker 1: he understood that even if children were too young to
Speaker 1: understand who Bobby Kennedy was or what had happened, they
Speaker 1: would feel the vibe in their own homes about how
Speaker 1: upset their parents were, how upset uh they're older siblings were,
Speaker 1: and wanted to talk about it. So in one sketch
Speaker 1: he has Daniel stripe a tiger. Just a minute, I
Speaker 1: want to show you simply asking Betty Aberlin, one of
Speaker 1: the human people who visits in the neighborhood, and it's
Speaker 1: a balloon, could you blow it up for you? Asked
Speaker 1: her to blow up a balloon and then let the
Speaker 1: air out and do it a few times. And he
Speaker 1: was concerned about something this little, this little puppet. What
Speaker 1: about your air? My my air inside me? Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: What if you blow all your air out, then you
Speaker 1: won't have any left, just like the balloon. But people
Speaker 1: aren't like balloons, Daniel. When we blow air out, we
Speaker 1: get some more back in. Oh, what does assassination mean?
Speaker 1: And this is out of a children's hand puppet. As
Speaker 1: far as you know that any other children shows address
Speaker 1: that topic, No, and and and I've looked. I just
Speaker 1: ask you in regardless of what uh the big news
Speaker 1: event is, can you imagine any children's television program that's
Speaker 1: on right now coming up almost with like a news
Speaker 1: special addressing the emotional consequences of it. It doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: This special ran the evening after Bobby Kennedy died Fred
Speaker 1: Rogers wrote this scene overnight. He was so tuned into
Speaker 1: his audience that he knew that this was something that
Speaker 1: children and their families absolutely needed to hear. Fred Rogers
Speaker 1: empathized with the kids who were feeling so scared and confused,
Speaker 1: so he talked right to those kids, and then he
Speaker 1: talked to their parents too about how to help with
Speaker 1: the children. The best thing in the world is for
Speaker 1: your children to be included in your family ways of
Speaker 1: coping with the problems that that present themselves any time,
Speaker 1: but particularly now in this very difficult time in our nation.
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers invented a neighborhood where people got together to
Speaker 1: talk about the things that confused them or scared them,
Speaker 1: and he used this place to show his viewers what
Speaker 1: you have to do to work through your emotions. And
Speaker 1: in doing that he was able to communicate complex concepts, moral,
Speaker 1: even spiritual concepts, excepts that even adults are still struggling
Speaker 1: to get a hold of. Empathy is about like sort
Speaker 1: of finding the space between the parts that connect right,
Speaker 1: Like we know as humans that we are connected to
Speaker 1: each other inextricably and irrevocably. Like we know that because
Speaker 1: we have to live in the world together and we
Speaker 1: have to rely on each other. I UM, in working
Speaker 1: on this project, I'm like really struck with what seems
Speaker 1: to me an apparent paradox. I think that this question
Speaker 1: of empathy feels so complicated for some people because on
Speaker 1: the one hand, it's like, are you saying we should
Speaker 1: have empathy for for rapists and racists and violent people
Speaker 1: and white supremacists. I think that makes people feel panicked
Speaker 1: about the idea of empathy, and I want to explore
Speaker 1: that a little bit with you, Like, how do you
Speaker 1: see those ideas working together? Well, let me start here.
Speaker 1: I'll start by saying, um, and I guess I'll just
Speaker 1: say whatever I say, and you guys can decide whether
Speaker 1: or not that's not appropriate. UM. My father has was
Speaker 1: in prison from the time I was about oh six
Speaker 1: months old until I was almost thirty, and my dad
Speaker 1: was I found out when I was fourteen years old
Speaker 1: that my dad was in prison for sexual assault, that
Speaker 1: that's why he was there, and that that's why he
Speaker 1: would be there for however long. And my dad had
Speaker 1: also written me letters up until that point my entire life.
Speaker 1: I mean, just so many letters. You're the best girl
Speaker 1: in the world. I love you so much. You're my
Speaker 1: favorite girl. Um. I think you're amazing. Never forget that
Speaker 1: your dad loves you. I'm thinking of you all the time.
Speaker 1: Nothing is better than your smile, you know, like all
Speaker 1: this kinds of stuff, and that had been to be
Speaker 1: perfectly honest, like the basis of my self esteem, and
Speaker 1: then to find out that this was true about my
Speaker 1: father was really really tough for me, but it started
Speaker 1: the beginning of a real understanding the complexity of humanity
Speaker 1: and that a person can be one person's hero and
Speaker 1: another person's worst nightmare and their monster and the thing
Speaker 1: that was hiding in the dark, and both of those
Speaker 1: things can be true about a person right like it
Speaker 1: has to be, Like there was no there was no
Speaker 1: other way to see this. He has both done a
Speaker 1: bad thing and he a terrible thing, a monstrous thing,
Speaker 1: and he has also, you know, been the thing that
Speaker 1: up into this point has kept me from feeling like
Speaker 1: I was alone in the world. And the truth is
Speaker 1: we're connected to these people for better or worse. We
Speaker 1: all want to be good, to be friendly, to be neighbors,
Speaker 1: at least most of us. But when we see other
Speaker 1: people acting well bad, we get hurt, we lose our
Speaker 1: own balance, we get mad. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: reactions to the state of our country, the state of
Speaker 1: the world, the state of society, all those things that
Speaker 1: are a lot of reactions right now that it is
Speaker 1: perfectly understandable for people to be this angry. And so
Speaker 1: I don't really blame the people who are kind of
Speaker 1: hot headed and lose their minds, or you know, like
Speaker 1: or or are so seems so consumed by their anger
Speaker 1: that they're more angry than alive. Like, I don't blame them,
Speaker 1: but I do always think, Man, who's going to be there?
Speaker 1: And how are they going to deal when the anger
Speaker 1: stops being enough? Because it'll never be enough. It will
Speaker 1: never ever, ever, ever, ever be enough. What do you
Speaker 1: do with the man that you've feel when you feel
Speaker 1: so mad you could bite me, when the whole wide
Speaker 1: world seems wrong, and nothing you do seems very what
Speaker 1: do you do with the man you feel? It's a
Speaker 1: question that preoccupied Fred Rogers. He wrote a song about it.
Speaker 1: He felt so strongly about it that he recited the
Speaker 1: lyrics to that song in front of a Senate committee
Speaker 1: hearing in You Got the Flaw. It's a famous bit
Speaker 1: of footage, and we'll return to it again. But I'm
Speaker 1: struck that this is one of the first times Fred
Speaker 1: Rogers was really explicit about what he was doing with
Speaker 1: his TV programs. And I feel that if we in
Speaker 1: public television can only make it clear that feelings are
Speaker 1: mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service
Speaker 1: for mental health. Uh. I think that it's much more
Speaker 1: dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings
Speaker 1: of anger, much more dramatic than showing something of gunfire.
Speaker 1: Could I tell you the words of one of the songs,
Speaker 1: which I feel is very important. This has to do
Speaker 1: with that good feeling of control which I feel that
Speaker 1: that children need to know is there. And it starts
Speaker 1: out what do you do with the mad that you feel?
Speaker 1: And that first line came straight from a child? What
Speaker 1: do you do with the mad that you feel? When
Speaker 1: you feel so mad you could bite, When the whole
Speaker 1: wide world seems oh so wrong, and nothing you do
Speaker 1: seems very right? What do you do? Do you punch
Speaker 1: a bag? Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Speaker 1: Do you round up friends for a game of tag
Speaker 1: or see how fast you go? It's great to be
Speaker 1: able to stop when you've planned a thing that's wrong,
Speaker 1: and be able to do something else instead, And think
Speaker 1: this song I can stop when I want to, can
Speaker 1: stop when I wish, can stop, stop, stop any time,
Speaker 1: And what a good feeling to feel, And what a
Speaker 1: good feeling to feel like this and know that the
Speaker 1: failing is really mine. I guess that makes me think
Speaker 1: a lot about the force of anger and the violence
Speaker 1: and ugliness that anger can cause. And here's this person
Speaker 1: sort of standing at the riverhead of anger and wanting
Speaker 1: to divert it. And I think it's a fascinating idea.
Speaker 1: And I want to ask you, what do you do
Speaker 1: Ashley with the mad that you feel? Oh? My god,
Speaker 1: I think because anger is a thing that I had
Speaker 1: to teach myself, give myself permission to feel in my adulthood,
Speaker 1: because I grew up in a very angry household where
Speaker 1: anger was the emotion. Did you um? But every day
Speaker 1: I I think what I have learned to do with
Speaker 1: my anger is to talk to it, which sounds so
Speaker 1: I know that it sounds a little booboo, but hey,
Speaker 1: this is Mr Rogers, Um. But I do I talk
Speaker 1: to my anger because what I've what I've essentially learned
Speaker 1: is that every emotion is just trying to tell you something.
Speaker 1: And when I'm angry, I think it's trying to tell
Speaker 1: me what I care about. It's trying to tell me
Speaker 1: what's important to me. Years ago, um I was really angry.
Speaker 1: I was working at a media company and the Ferguson
Speaker 1: uprising was happening, and the news room was covering it.
Speaker 1: We were all talking about it, and I had a
Speaker 1: conversation with a boss who told me that they did
Speaker 1: not want me to tweet out the words black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter because it was political and it could affect my
Speaker 1: colleagues ability to do their job. And I remember feeling
Speaker 1: so angry at the implication that I could choose. That's
Speaker 1: not just a choice. And I think that's when I
Speaker 1: just got to it, why, where I was just like,
Speaker 1: you know what I can, I'm gonna do something, and
Speaker 1: it's going to be something that they're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to do anything about. I ended up raising
Speaker 1: about half a million dollars for the Ferguson Library because
Speaker 1: it was a really safe place for children. Schools were
Speaker 1: closed and teachers were going to the library and just
Speaker 1: sending emails to parents and saying, hey, if you need
Speaker 1: to bring your kids to the library, we're just all
Speaker 1: going to go to the library. And it's not that
Speaker 1: it makes the anger go away. But what it does
Speaker 1: is it it makes the anger not feel chaotic. I'm
Speaker 1: giving it a job so that I don't have to
Speaker 1: live within in my body. What do you do with
Speaker 1: the man that you feel? What do you do with
Speaker 1: the sadness, the frustration? What do you do with the
Speaker 1: joy and this surprise or the love that you feel?
Speaker 1: Over something like nine episodes, Fred Rogers used the language
Speaker 1: of children and the land of make believe to talk
Speaker 1: about feelings. But this is not light work. Mr Rogers
Speaker 1: Neighborhood was not a simple show, and Mr Rogers Fred
Speaker 1: Rogers was not a simple man. He was a preacher
Speaker 1: who did his best work on television. He was a
Speaker 1: wildly talented musician and composer who wrote songs primarily heard
Speaker 1: by four year olds. He was deeply involved with people
Speaker 1: who were transforming the very way we think about children
Speaker 1: and learning. Fred Rogers was a radical in a sense.
Speaker 1: He was spiritual. He was revolutionary. I mean he might
Speaker 1: have even been subversive. Get scared me, get mad if
Speaker 1: we get too scared about fights, will never do things
Speaker 1: together ever. Yeah, I think now right, I think this
Speaker 1: is the calming down way to say I love you.
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers left us an enormous body of work, a
Speaker 1: road map. I think that we can revisit to see
Speaker 1: what we can learn that still applies as much today
Speaker 1: as it did in n So we're going to talk
Speaker 1: to the people who knew him best. What was true
Speaker 1: about Fred Rogers is he was he was tuned in
Speaker 1: at a deeper level than most people in the daytime.
Speaker 1: I was learning this complex child development theory in grad school,
Speaker 1: and at night I would come into the control room
Speaker 1: and I would see Fred live out all the things
Speaker 1: I was learning about. We'll also seek out people like
Speaker 1: Ashley and others who grew up with Mr Rogers, people
Speaker 1: who recognize there's something deeper going on there. We're gonna
Speaker 1: try to understand some of what Fred coded into his
Speaker 1: children's program and see if we can put it into
Speaker 1: a language for the adults who so desperately need it. Now,
Speaker 1: we're trying to crawl into the mind of Fred Rogers.
Speaker 1: How did this singular dude from an Appalachian town happen
Speaker 1: to develop some of the most spiritually sophisticated, substantial, maybe
Speaker 1: even essential television of all time. You can call his
Speaker 1: work of philosophy, but it really just comes down to this,
Speaker 1: how can Fred Rogers help us be better neighbors next week?
Speaker 1: When I met Fred Rogers, he was a very unusual
Speaker 1: positive energy, so damn unusual, and by that I mean
Speaker 1: those puppets. What on earth was a grown man doing?
Speaker 1: Plan with The pub is Finding Fred is produced by
Speaker 1: Transmitter Media. The team is Dan O'Donnell, Jordan Bailey, and
Speaker 1: Mattie Foley. Our editor is Sarah Nick's editorial will help
Speaker 1: from Michael Garofalo. The executive producer for Transmitter Media is
Speaker 1: Credit Cone. Executive producers at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs and
Speaker 1: Andrew Berman. Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Alison Layton
Speaker 1: Brown And thanks to the team at My Heart. If
Speaker 1: you like what you're hearing, rate the show, review the show,
Speaker 1: and tell a friend I'm Carvel Wallace. Thank you for listening.