Invisible to the Eye

On playing to the peanut gallery. On make believe. On what is essential, and where to find it.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Teething can be a real nightmare for your little ones.
Highlands Naturals Baby oral pain relief tablets can help ease
the pain. It's gentle, natural active ingredients like camemeo and
arnica suite your baby's mouth, and gums made with ingredients
derived from plant minerals and other sources free of harsh chemicals.
You can count on Highlands for serious pain relief for
your teething baby. Highlands is a kinder way to care

(00:21):
for teething. Visit Highlands dot com slash kind. That's h
y l a n ds dot com slash kind claims
based on traditional homeopathropractice, not accept the medical evidence, not
ft evaluated. Our lives are filled with choices. What's not
a choice addiction to opioids. But even with opioid use disorder,
you still have a choice. Choose treatment and choose change.
California bond medically proven treatment options at Choose Change see

(00:44):
a dot org. Hi. I'm Abnemone and I'm Ricked Schwartz
and we're here from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance,
the global conservation organization behind the world Chame of San
Diego Zoo and so far a park and together. We're
excited to announce the podcast Amazing Wildlife. Here incredible stories

(01:07):
about wildlife and the global efforts to save it as
we explore the connection between humans, wildlife, and the environment.
Listen to Amazing Wildlife on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I Yeah,
we're excited. What I want to do is a long

(01:29):
distance grandparent podcast, because I grew up with grandparents in
the home. Head A Shapan was a producer on Mr.
Rogers Neighborhood. She has a story she likes to tell
about her grandkids. When I babysit for my grandchildren in Chicago,
when the phone rings, they both scream out, don't answer it,

(01:52):
don't answer it. It might be a telemarketer. 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, Grandma,
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

(02:20):
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

(02:41):
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.

(03:02):
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

(03:22):
the essence of who we become, and these things that
we work on in our childhood and the way we
resolve them stay with us through our lives. I'm Carvel
Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast about Fred

(03:42):
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 did some discipline, some training to grow
up and be well mannered people. But after World War Two,

(04:06):
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

(04:29):
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
to Sharepan 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

(04:52):
of the journey to adulthood. In the nineteen fifties, the
University of Pittsburgh was home to pioneering work in 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

(05:14):
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

(05:37):
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

(05:58):
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

(06:19):
have her with him so that he wouldn't miss her
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,

(06:43):
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 our development theory,
and at night I would come into the control room

(07:04):
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

(07:28):
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. Oh really, sorry, Daniel, are
you I can see by your face that you really sad. Yeah,

(07:52):
it feels so awful to get forgotten. I know, why
did you forget me? Yeah? 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

(08:16):
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

(08:36):
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.

(09:02):
There 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 to young children? Betsy
Siemens worked on Fred's show in the nineteen seventies. She
told me that Margaret McFarland helped them make a show

(09:24):
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

(09:48):
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

(10:13):
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 about 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

(10:34):
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.
And Mr Rogers neighborhood. Fred brought kids magical worlds to life.

(10:55):
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 Belie. I mean,

(11:20):
and you tell you yea, yeah, really worried Mima 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

(11:43):
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

(12:05):
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 for
me one more time? I forgot? I know. Does it

(12:31):
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.

(12:53):
I'm not as sad as I was before before you
came and talked to me. M oh good. The stories
in the Land of Make Believe, we're 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

(13:16):
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 the simple interpretation of the dream. Anything can happen
and make believe and we can talk about anything in reality.

(13:40):
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

(14:03):
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 were speaking to the child.
As soon as the television artist becomes a child before
the screen, then the adult child relationship is lost. Mr

(14:28):
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. Teething can

(15:09):
be a real nightmare for your little ones. So are
you looking for the best relief to soothe teething pain?
Or Highlands Naturals Baby oral pain relief can help use
the pain. It's gentle, natural, active ingredients like cameramil and arnica.
They'll soothe your baby's mouth and gums. No chemicals, no
funny business. Highlands is a kinder way to care for teething.
Get yours at Highlands dot com, slash kind that's h

(15:32):
y l A and ds dot com. Slash kind claims
based on traditional homeopath a practice not accept the medical
evidence not ft evaluated. It's impossible to escape the news
about the climate crisis these days, but all those headlines
can be frustrating. What are we as individuals able to
deal about it? Luckily, you can take the first step
with rend. We're a website does I to help you
calculate your carbon footprint so you can offset it by

(15:54):
funding projects that plant treats, protect the rainforest, and more.
Just head to rent dot se, w r e N,
dot c O, answer a few questions about your lifestyle,
figure out the size of your carbon footprint, and learn
how to reduce it. Since no one can reduce their
carbon footprints a zero, you can also offset it on
top of reducing it. And once you sign up to
make a monthly contribution to offset your carbon footprint, you'll

(16:16):
get monthly updates from the tree planting, rainforce protection and
carbon removal projects you support. You get to see the
trees you plant it and what your money has spent on.
It will take a lot to in the climate crisis,
but you can start helping today with Rent. Go to
rent dot c O, w r E N dot CEO,
and if you sign up with the referral code I
heart Wren, will plant ten extra trees in your name. Hi.

(16:40):
I'm CYNDI lauper. For years, I felt awful because of
my psoriasis, but I didn't give up my doctor and
I chose Consentics. Con Centics like you can you MAD
is indicated for adults with moderate to severe plaxariasis and
is given as a three milligram dose. Don't use if
you're allergic to co centics. Before starting, get checked for
tuberculosis and increased risk of infections. I'm serious and a

(17:00):
lowered ability to fight them may occur. Tell your doctor
about an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle, legs,
or cough, or if you've had a vaccine or plant
to tell your doctor if your crones to see symptoms
develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions may occur. To see
our ad in Country Living magazine. Learn more eco centics
dot com or by calling one eight or four Consentics.
Corothentics works for me. Ask your dermatologist about con centics.

(17:28):
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

(17:49):
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 B. And

(18:11):
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, kids,

(18:44):
tell your parents you want Oval Team, Tutsie Rolls, Twinkies, Coldgate, toothpaste,
Wonder Brad, 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 hugely promotional in terms of pushing products for the

(19:09):
Kids to Buy a catalog had twenty four pages filled
with products licensed by how to 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

(19:34):
that much, while all I can say is, then why
would 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 trope from his

(19:56):
college in Florida. He discovered that his parents owned one
of the roost 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

(20:17):
were putting pious in each other's faces on it. 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,

(20:37):
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,

(20:58):
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.

(21:20):
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

(21:42):
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

(22:05):
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,

(22:25):
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 e D, which true, it wasn't on the air yet.

(22:45):
We didn't go on the air until April first of
nineteen fifty four. Fred was part of a new show
called The Children's Corner. Fred wasn't the host, that was
a local actor named Josie Ry, but it was present
in every scene, composing and playing the music and performing
with some very familiar puppets. I'd like everybody to meet

(23:10):
a very very good friend of mine, a tame tiger
is not wild? Was ready? Yes, stand up say, I'd
like you to meet my friend, Daniel F Tiger. Do
you do. One of my very earliest TV memories is

(23:31):
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

(23:55):
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 to 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.

(24:17):
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,

(24:39):
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

(25:04):
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

(25:25):
War Two, a television boom hit the US. In 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 nineteen sixty nine, when Fred
rogers neighborhood was a year old, there were forty four
millions such households. Advertisers got more aggressive. This flashy new

(25:49):
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,

(26:09):
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

(26:32):
to shrink its funding to public broadcasting, and past Story
was skeptical about whether there was anything worth salvaging in TV.
A small delegation of public broadcasters was called to Washington
to advocate for and defend the medium in front of
Senator pas Story. Fred Rogers was among them. Head A

(26:56):
Sheapan 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,

(27:18):
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

(27:40):
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

(28:01):
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,

(28:24):
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.

(28:45):
I give an expression of care every day to each
child to help him realize that he is unique. I
am 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

(29:06):
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 interest in in our kind of communication. Fred spoke
from the heart, with passion, with clarity. It's not just

(29:30):
to influence someone, it's to help them feel something. That's
what will help you take it in. I think it's
wonderful that if it evokes something in you, I think
it's wonderful. It looks like you're just doing the twenty
million dollars. Fred always quoted the Little Prince, what is

(30:05):
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,

(30:29):
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

(30:52):
fear that the police will come if the telemarketers call,
and which ones are important, like the feeling that someone
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

(31:12):
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

(31:34):
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,

(32:07):
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 Maddie Foley. Our
editor is Sarah Nicks. The executive producer for Transmitter Media

(32:30):
is Greta Cohn. Executive producers at 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 Dots, Sessions and Alison Layton Brown. If you

(32:52):
like what you're hearing, rate the show, review the show,
and tell a friend I'm Carvelo Wallace and thanks for listening.

(33:13):
Teething can be a real nightmare for your little ones.
Highlands Naturals Baby oral pain relief tablets can help ease
the pain. It's gentle, natural active ingredients like Camemeo and
Arnica suite your baby's mouth and gums made with ingredients
derived from plant minerals and other sources free of harsh chemicals.
You can count on Highlands for serious pain relief for
your teething baby. Highlands is a kinder way to care

(33:34):
for teething Visit Highlands dot com. Slash kind. That's h
y l a n ds dot com. Slash kind claims
based on traditional homeopathropractice, not accept the medical evidence, not
ft evaluated. Hi. I'm Ebony Money and I'm Ricked Schwartz
and we're here from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance,
the global conservation organization behind the world cham of San

(33:56):
Diego Zoo and Safari Park, and together we're excited to
announced the podcast Amazing Wildlife. Here incredible stories about wildlife
and the global efforts to save it as we explore
the connection between humans, wildlife and the environment. Listen to
Amazing Wildlife on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Here at Freddy's we

(34:23):
could tell you how our original double is. This steak
burger made with lean ground beef, cooked to order with
deliciously crispy edges and finished off with our Freddie's famous seasoning,
but we'd rather let her original double speak for itself.
I couldn't have said it better ourselves. Enjoy food made
fresh the Freddy's Way. Tap now or learn more at

(34:45):
Freddy's USA dot com