The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

by Maxwell King

Rogers’s refusal to abide by the rules of the marketplace, along with his gentle, slow approach to programming overall, left him open to criticism that he was coddling children and giving them unrealistic expectations of the harsh world they would someday enter. Don Feder, a nationally syndicated columnist for the Boston Herald, summed it up: “For over twenty-five years on his PBS series, Fred Rogers has been filling the innocent heads of children with this pap. . . . Under a self-esteem regime, America is becoming a nation of feel-good mediocrities.”15 But Rogers’s critics are guilty of ignoring great volumes of his work that emphasize personal responsibility and discipline on the parts of children and their parents and teachers. Fred Rogers always believed in a balance between cognitive and emotional content, and he tried to give appropriate weight to the need for discipline and focus. In fact, he produced an entire theme week of episodes just on the topic of discipline. In all his books, his speeches, his letters to children and parents, his scripts, even the lyrics to his songs, Fred repeatedly emphasized personal responsibility. The difference is that Rogers honed in on the cultivation of self-discipline rather than an emphasis on parents and teachers dropping the proverbial hammer. Fred Rogers felt very strongly—backed by the research of child-development mentors—that the most effective gift to young children is nurturing the capacity for self-discipline rather than ...