I grew up on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, literally, I can sing the opening song while chewing gum and walking backwards while I am blindfolded, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor, won’t you be mine…” I am sure you know it too. For one hour everyday my mom had me sit down with my mentally handicapped sister in front of the television-set and we watched Mr. Rogers’ together on PBS. I was born in 1966 and I think I began watching it when I turned three. The show itself began airing in 1968, and throughout my whole childhood his show was a mainstay in our house. And his voice, his calm, steady, couldn’t-or-wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly voice was a constant drone in the background of the living room as I toddled around in my socks on our thick shag carpet.

I don’t ever remember my older brother ever watching it, he was too old and too cool to be seen dead watching the small red trolley go the neighborhood of make-believe. And my other sisters absolutely hated it. They would make me turn the station to Eight is Enough or Electric Company, but if all that was on the telly was Mister Rogers they left the room, he was too sugary sweet, maple-syrupy nice for them. They liked dangerous guys, hockey playing and fast car driving guys, not boring old men that reminded them of their Uncle who played solitaire during family get togethers. Just ask them.

I, however, was a different sort of kid. I kind of liked watching boring things. I wouldn’t mind it when he would go walking around his neighborhood meeting the baker, or the pottery guy around the street corner. But if he spent too long in the neighborhood of make-believe, those puppets with his fake voices would drive me crazy. Especially Lady Elaine Fairchilde. I guess you could say if I had nothing else to do, like build a tower with Legos or throw buckeyes at the mean neighbors across the street in my Columbus, Ohio neighborhood, I would go inside and watch Mister Rogers. I could stomach the cardigan wearing man when there was nothing else on.

So there I sat, watching this model of pastoral politeness put on his comfy red sweater, sit down and slip off his business shoes and toss up his blue grandpa sneakers and start talking to the television while he tied the laces. 

It was a slow show, painfully slow. And I can never recall ever once talking to my neighbors about it. “Hey Johnny, did you watch that last episode of Mister Rogers when King Friday was talking with Daniel Tiger?” Nope, sorry, I would never, ever consider mentioning that I was watching Mister Rogers around my football playing friends. Nor did I ever invite them over to watch it like I did for Speed Racer or even the Little Rascals. Mister Rogers wasn’t that kind of a show. It was a lonely space filler I watched alone.

So to my surprise, Mister Rogers has now become the next big thing. What? All of a sudden because Tom Hanks is playing the role of Fred Rogers on the big screen it is all the rage, people are even telling their friends to go watch it. Why?

In an article called “Mister Rogers and the Dark Abyss of the Adult Soul” the writer Anne Peterson writes, “Rogers dedicated his life and decades of programming to helping children actually feel their feelings. Wallow in them, express them, process them. And adulthood, for most of us, is about acquiring the skills to feel no feelings at all. Feelings are distracting, inefficient, unoptimizable, unprofessional — childlike. They interfere with our capacity to work. In fact, some of us use work, especially if we’re “good” at it, to avoid our feelings.” Supposedly the reason Mister Rogers is good because he helped children feel their feelings. And we all need to learn how to “wallow” in our sadness again.

Maybe she is right. I can remember all the emotions I had when I was a kid watching this show: boredom, frustration at the way he talked to me through the television made it seem like he thought I was a one-year old baby. Boy did it make me mad. And that anger carried through at Lady Elaine the puppet, I wanted to wrench her neck. And then there was desire, I can remember saying, “Mom, can I eat some snacks while I watch this show and wait for dinner? I am really hungry!” To which she replied, “Nope, you will spoil your appetite.” So I guess Mister Rogers taught me patience too.

About ten years ago, an article came out against Mister Rogers’ teaching called, “Mister Rogers was Wrong” by a psychologist named Lawrence Diller M.D. He believed Mister Rogers talked too much about emotions, where he writes,” It stands to reason, though, that parents must be part of the problem. Some of us have raised dummies and the disengaged not on purpose, surely, but perhaps because we listened to Mr. Rogers and told them (the kids) too often that we liked them just the way they were. I’ve watched with concern, helplessness, frustration and bemusement the fruits of our culture’s over emphasis on feelings in general and its fixation over children’s self-image and self esteem. These are huge cultural trends that are now playing themselves out, as children raised under these ‘rules,’ are now maturing into their mid-twenties.”

So he is saying maybe we focused too much on our kid’s emotions. So who is right?

I think Dr. Miller has a point. If all you do is raise your kids on Mister Rogers and then you send them out into the world, or ask them to join the football team where the coach swears like a sailor they won’t know what hit them. They will crumble in their cardigans. Instead of teaching kids how to wallow and brood over their feelings, wouldn’t it be better to help them work through sadness and anger with perseverance and discipline. Mister Rogers coddles. Speed Racer, now he inspires!

To me we have raised far too many kids, especially boys, on Mister Rogers, Caillou, Arthur and Tele-tubbies. And this demasculinization of culture has trickled down to almost every nook and cranny of society. I can remember the hour long recesses I had when I was a kid where we would play “Kill the Guy” and tackle-tag in the grass by the baseball field. I loved it! Even the girls did. Now kids barely have a half-hour for recess and if they are caught running they have go sit inside for recess doing math sheets. Boys are not really allowed to be boys anymore, but instead, all the professionals and teachers want them to think about are their feelings. 

No wonder there is an epidemic of mood controlling drugs and antidepressants being sold.

But that is ok, the movie experts want all boys to be trained to be girls, it is now the superior gender. And don’t get me going on the transgender craze, Desmond is not amazing! And if it was up to me, I would no longer allow another drag queen into our libraries to accost the minds of the innocents. If I ever caught a guy with makeup and a glittery dress teaching my kids about the wonder of drag, I would want to punch his lights out! I am sure Mister Rogers wouldn’t care, he was too nice of a guy to make people feel bad. Remember, we must like them just the way they are.

But do you know the real reason why Mister Rogers is our new modern day hero? It really has nothing to do with Mister Rogers himself, it is all about Tom Hanks. Anything he plays must be good, and right, and morally pure. He was Forrest Gump after all. And Forrest Gump is never wrong. I am sure Tom Hanks could even make Caillou popular. God forbid.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate or dislike Mister Rogers. I just hate a culture that is quick to follow popular sentiment and oozy kindness. We live in a world of groupthink, and whatever the cultural experts say we must abide by. The people that believe themselves to be cool and trendy fall in lock-step with what the cultural elite say they must believe. Face it, there is a war on men going on and a hatred for healthy masculinity. 

And the reason why Mister Rogers gets a pass is because he and his puppets fit the new soft mold of repressed masculinity perfectly.