Invisible to the Eye

Don't answer, don't answer it might be a telemarketer. With this fervor and terror almost so, one day, the four and a half year old came to me and she said, Graham, I never asked this question before, but I really want to know what happens if you do answer it and it's a telemarketer? She said, do the police come. This is a phenomenal world we live in, and it's very

complicated to a young child. There's so many things that kids just don't understand, and that's why they ask why all the time, why the street lights turn red, why water goes down the drain, where someone goes when they leave the room, or whether they will even come back. Kids fill that void with wonder, sometimes with magical ideas, and sometimes they fill that void with monsters and with fear. There's a quote from Mr rogers favorite book, The Little Prince.

What is essential is invisible to the eye. Fred spent his whole life learning how to see the invisible insides of children in his audience, learning about that essential thing, how kids make sense of the world, how we all make sense of the world. Fred understood that childhood is the essence of who we be calm, and these things that we work on in our childhood and the way

we resolved them stay with us through our lives. I'm Carvel Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers from I Heart Media and Fatherly in partnership with Transmitter Media. For years, for centuries, maybe we didn't know much about children. They were assumed to be like tiny adults who just needed some discipline, some training to

grow up and be well mannered people. But after World War Two, a new field of research emerged, child development, and with it the revolutionary idea that kids aren't simply blank slates waiting to be stamped with ideas and personalities. People started to understand that kids are constantly sampling the world around them and assembling an identity a way of being in the world, because the important question is not so much what can we give children onto them, what

can we produce for them? The really important question is what are they bringing to us? For more than fifty years, head A. Shapan has worked with the production company founded by Fred Rogers in Pittsburgh. What's fascinating is that Pittsburgh was such a hub for understanding early childhood as the beginning of the journey to adulthood. In the nineteen fifties, the University of Pittsburgh was home to pioneering work in the field of child development. Eric Erickson, who coined the

term identity crisis, was a professor there. He was among the first psychologists to take seriously the inner lives of children. Benjamin Spock was also there for much of the twentieth century. His book on Children was the second best selling work after The Bible. But then there was doctor Margaret McFarland, not as well known as the other two, but perhaps the most gifted of them all. Ericson himself once said that quote, she knew more than anyone in this world

about families with young children. It was Margaret McFarland that Fred Rogers chose as his mentor. I was a student of Margaret McFarlane's in grad school, and one thing she would do was tell stories. She would give us the context for things. She would talk about a child who was sad because his mother had to go out and he was left with the babysitter, and he sulked for

a while and cried. But then what he did was he got up into her rocking chair and he took a magazine and sat there with it in his hands. It was even upside down, but that's what she would do. It was as if he needed to recreate her and have her with him so that he wouldn't miss are so much. One of the beauties of Fred's work with Margaret is that, and with all of us, is that she would help us see the things that were beyond our eyes. Fred met Dr McFarland in the nineteen fifties.

He took her graduate level child development classes at the University of Pittsburgh. Later, when he was making television, he encouraged had to Sherepin to do the same. They were taping at night, so it worked out with my schedule. In the daytime, I was learning this complex child development theory, and at night I would come into the control room and I would see Fred live out all the things I was learning about. How do you help children with aggression?

What do you do with the mad that you feel? Ritual transitions? He says, we are going to go now into it's time for the neighbor to make but he led us to the next step separation. Separation anxiety was a kind of recurring theme on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Fred found all sorts of ways to talk with kids about that scariest thing, being abandoned. I'm really sorry, Daniel, are you. I can see by your face that you're really sad. Yeah, it feels so awful to get forgotten. I know, why

did you forget me? I was hurrying around so much. I just wasn't thinking straight. Has that ever happened to you? What somebody forgetting you? Yes? It has. Oh, could you tell me about it? Well? It was my birthday party and my very best friend forgot to come to my party. She did. I waited and waited for her to come to the door with a present, and what happened? She was gone to her grandmother's house. I couldn't even get her on the telephone. Was she mad at you? No,

she just forgot. Could you tell me again why you didn't come for me one more time? I forgot? I know. They are over nine hundred episodes of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, and each week Fred would walk down the street script in hand to Dr McFarland's office. I can remember one time when I wrote something about bees and she said, well, do you know what bees mean? Too? Young children? Betsy

Siemens worked on Fred's show in the nineteen seventies. She told me that Margaret McFarland helped them make a show that spoke right to kids experience. She's, well, you know, they if they sting you, you know, it has to do with body integrity, and they you know, it's a violation. And she wouldn't say don't use bees. She's just saying, if we're going to have bees, we have to deal with bees. You have to understand the implications. You have

to understand what that's about. From this magical world that we have hard time accessing, you know, but she had full access. She had a passport right into that world and she could go there all the time. Margaret could go there all the time. And she opened the door for Fred, and Fred he held the door open for the rest of the neighborhood. And one of the things I always understood from Fred that um until basically children lose their milk teeth as you you know, like surround six,

they live in a magical world. And so I think his thing was to to listen so hard and to think so hard how someone who lives in another world, literally in a magical world where where there's little men up in the street lights that are making them turn different colors. It's hard to access that child and hard to communicate with that child. What a special assignment that is to try to get access to that magical world? M then Mr Rogers neighborhood. Fred brought kids magical worlds

to life. The neighborhood of make Believe was a place where puppets were in charge, wars could be solved with balloons, where a striped tiger named Daniel lived in a clock. Are you ready for the Neighborhood of make Belief? Okay, here's the trolley. Make the trolley come right around the castle and think of the neighborhood of make Beliey yeah, I mean, and you tell you yeah, yeah, I really worried Daniel. You know, I think Daniel has been coughing

ever since yesterday. The Trip to Make Believe could be playful and full of wonder, but it could also be a safe place where kids could encounter their fears and figure out how to deal with them. Betsy told me that the Land of Make Belief segments were the most carefully made parts of the show. I would go to Margaret before I ever wrote out dialogue for the neighbor to Make Believe, and then she would talk to me

about the implications. There would be a through line in the Neighborhood of Make Believe, like a little soap opera, and on Monday something happens and then trouble. I mean, I'm thinking of a week where Daniel got left behind. Lady Everland forgot to take him somewhere, and and and he was left alone. Could you tell me again why you didn't come from me one more time? I forgot? I know. Does it make you feel like we aren't really friends? Kind of but I don't know why, but

not really. No, we're friends, Daniel, Yes, it seems like we just are. I'm still so sorry. I'm not as sad as I was before before you came and talked to me. Oh good. The stories in the Land of Make Believe were reinforced by things that happened in the rest of the show in Mr Rogers house, in the real life neighborhood, the opening reality of the program, we deal with the stuff that dreams are made of, and then in the Neighborhood of make Believe, we deal with

it as if it were a dream. And then when it comes back to me, we deal with a simple interpretation of the dream. Anything can happen and make believe and we can talk about anything in reality. One of Fred's favorite sayings was if it is mentionable, it is manageable. The quote is from Margaret McFarland. She, like Fred, believed that this is the real value of TV for kids communication. It is less a show for children and more real

communication with him. And that's the only way I understand that is that to the child, the television program, between you and the child is a real relationship, and that you are speaking to the child. As soon as the television artist becomes a child before the screen, then the adult child relationship is lost. Mr Rogers Neighborhood did more

than entertained kids. Margaret and Fred listened carefully to children and then made a show that spoke to them, that helped them make sense of the world, that lovingly showed them how to be in the world. But needless to say, that is not how most of children's television turned out more after the break. When I was a parenting advice columnist for Slate, one question we always got from parents was about how to protect kids from media and from all the bad things they might find on YouTube in

the Internet. For a lot of us, this fear leads to a suspicion of maybe even an outright panic about media and technology, because it does feel next to impossible to figure out how to shield your kids when so much stuff is flying at them. But that feeling of threat is not new. Television, in terms of children's TV, started nationally in with Howdy Dooty, and it couldn't be more manic. David being Cooley is a long time TV critic. Some of the characters were more violent, were more rowdy.

We can't play you any of the footage from those early days of TV because it is all astronomically expensive, even seventy plus years later. But The show's basically sounded like this, Ye kids, tell your parents you want Ovaltine, tutsie rolls, Twinkies, Colgate, toothpaste, wonder Bread, shoes and hats and toys and Whirlpool dryers. The children who were in the TV studio were called the Peanut Gallery, and they

were all amped up on sugar products. And it was a crazy place, and it was a hugely promotional in terms of pushing products for the kids to buy. A catalog had twenty four pages filled with products licensed by Howdy Duty alone. It included puppets and toys, clothing, cereals, and candies. There are those people who sometimes say the television doesn't affect us all that much. Well, all I can say is, then why were advertisers pay so much money to put their messages on a medium that doesn't

affect us all that much? In Fred Rogers came home to the Trobe from his college in Florida. He discovered that his parents owned one of the first TVs in town. His first reaction was curiosity. His next, as best we can tell, was discussed. It was a program where people were dressed up in some kinds of costumes or something and they were. They literally were putting pious in each other's faces. And I was astounded at that, and I thought, this could be a wonderful tool for education. Why is

it being used this way? And so I said to my parents, you know, I don't think i'll go to seminary right away. I think maybe I'll go into television. And I said, but you've never even seen it. And I said, well, I've seen enough of it here. I just thought, hey, let's see what we can do with this. He was a music major who was getting up to go to theological seminary, and suddenly he was shipping off to NBC in New York to make TV. He starts

making connections, climbing the ladder. He's making it in New

York City, and then Pittsburgh calls. Not only was Pittsburgh a hub for studying child development in the nineteen fifties, it was also one of the most innovative places in the country for technology, R and D. It was the home to Alcoa Westinghouse, the forerunner of what became Carnegie Mellon University, and early in the decade, the city's mayor had his own technological eureka moment he dreamed up the idea of a community funded, non commercial, educational public television station.

In that dream became a reality, w q e D, the first such public TV station in the country. I told some of my friends at NBC that I thought that I'd put my name in and apply for the station. They said, you are nuts. That place isn't even on the air yet, and you're in line to be a producer or a director or anything you want to be here, And I said, now I have. I have the feeling that educational television might might be, at least for me,

the way of the future. And I applied and was one of the first I think one of the first six to be hired at w q D, which true, it wasn't on the air yet. We didn't go on the air until April one nine. Fred was part of a new show called The Children's Corner. Fred wasn't the host, that was a local actor named Josie Carey, but he was present in every scene, composing and playing the music and performing with some very familiar puppets. I'd like everybody to meet a very very good friend of mine, a

pame tiger, which is not wild. Ready, stand up, say I'd like you to me my friend Daniel F. Tiger. One of my very earliest TV memories is I remember Children's Corner. It was just a local TV show in Pittsburgh, but it was captivating then because of how sweet it was and how different from everything else on TV. It was quiet, it was it was laid back, and it took its time. A few years and a few more

puppets later, Fred was center stage on camera. From the very beginning, Fred stood apart from his on air peers. He wasn't pandering too kids. He wasn't selling them toys or candy. He was using his complex understanding of child psychology to create a real relationship with his audience. He understood the value of repetition for young viewers. He understood the value of structure to offer the same sort of

elements over and over again. He understood slow pacing and which is not the same thing as being boring, but it's just taking your time. Television is an exceedingly personal medium. It reflects the story back to us whatever we happened to be watching. We bring our own story to the screen, and so consequently it's it's like a dialogue. I do feel that what we see and hear on the screen is part of who we become. After World War Two,

a television boom hit the US. A couple of years before Fred Rogers started making programs, fewer than a million households in the US had a TV, but two decades later, in when Fred Rogersighborhood was a year old, there were forty four millions such households. Advertisers got more aggressive. This flashy new medium could make people feel sweeping emotions and then sell them on toys and gadgets, maybe even on ideas. Meanwhile, to attract new audiences to sell more stuff, shows got

louder and faster and more violent. During the sixties, you see a wave of growing violence and unrest in the world, assassinations and uprisings, and people wanted to know whether TV was playing a role in this escalating mess. One such person was John pass Story. By nineteen sixty nine, he had served as the governor of Rhode Island and was

now a sitting senator. President Nixon was leaning on Congress to shrink its funding to public broadcasting, and past Story was skeptical about whether there was anything worth salvaging, and TV a small delegation of public broadcasters was called to Washington to advocate for and defend the medium in front of Senator past Story. Fred Rogers was among them. Head A. Sheripin was working with Fred by this time and recalls how invested he was in reaching past Story with his

finely crafted message. Fred worked long and hard on his speeches, revision and revision revision. So when I heard the Senator past Story, who was the head of the Communications Committee, said I don't want anyone to read their speeches any I'm tired of hearing people read. Just tell me what you want, I thought, Oh, good luck. Fred past Story had sat through two days worth of testimony, mostly people reading prepared statements focused on the dollars and cents involved

in cutting public TV's budget. He barks that he's not interested in anymore reading Senator past Story, this is a philosophical statement and would take about ten minutes to read, so I'll not do that. My first children make you happy if you read it, I'd just like to talk about it if I'm very much concerned as I know you are, about what's being delivered to our children in this country. I read an article about Senator past story that he was really troubled by the violence on television.

And I have a sense that Fred did his homework and understood that that was something important to him. Because Fred was like that, he wanted to know who his audience was. He wanted to know who you are so that he could relate in most meaningful, relevant kind of way. I give an expression of care every day to each child to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying, You've made this day a

special day by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are. Well, I'm supposed to be a pretty tough guy, and this is the first time I've had goose bumps for the last two days. Well, I'm grateful not only for your goose bumps, but for your interests in in our kind of communication. Fred spoke from the heart, with passion, with clarity. It's not just to influence someone, it's to help them feel something. That's

what will help you take it in. I think it's one that if it evokes something in you, I think it's wonderful. It looks like you're just done A twenty million Fred always quoted the Little Prince, what is essential is invisible to the eye. The full quote from the book, however, is it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.

Sometimes the most important feelings we have, the most essential ones are the quiet, nearly invisible ones, the tiny feeling of regret that nags at us when we think we might be hurting someone, the small tingle we feel when we see something that we love. And maybe when we are children, these feelings are louder in us, more intense.

But the thing is, as children, we don't yet know which feelings are to be ignored, like the fear that the police will come if the telemarketers call, and which ones are important, like the feeling that someone you trust maybe trying to hurt you. We count on the adults in our lives to help us sort that out as we grow. So what happens when the adults who are teaching us are themselves unable to listen with the heart, when they don't pay attention to how we're feeling or

what we need. What happens when adults can't help us because their lives are too busy or too loud or too full of fear, when we're left alone with feelings we don't understand or know what to do with. What kind of world does that make for all of us? And what kind of world could we have if we were better at listening to those quiet cues from children,

especially the kids that still live somewhere inside us. Next time, if you're vulnerable on camera, and if you let people know when you don't know, or if you let people see you break, or if you let people see you like sweat like, then they connect with you on a human level. Finding Fred is produced by Transmitter Media. The team is Dan O'donnald, Jordan Bailey, and Mattie Foley. Our editor is Sarah Nicks. The executive producer for Transmitter Media

is Greta Cohne. Executive producers that Fatherly are Simon Isaacs and Andrew Berman. Thanks to the team at I Heart Media, Fred Watchers interviewed tape courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. The full interview is available at Television Academy dot com slash Interviews. Our show is mixed by Rick Kwan, music

by Blue Dot Sessions and Alison Layton Brown. If you like what you're hearing, rate the show, review the show, and tell a friend I'm Carlo Wallace and thanks for listening. H