If you know me well, you know I’m always figuring out how to wear a cardigan… even when it is scorching hot in the summer (they’re my favorite). I received a text today: “BTW- it’s cardigan day to celebrate Mr. Rogers. So, if you aren’t already wearing one, go throw it on because kindness is always cool.” You can read about the celebration here.
I promptly went up stairs and put on a cardigan.
I just finished an amazing biography about Mr. Rogers: The Good Neighbor recently. Bonus: the audiobook is read by LeVar Burton.
I remember watching his show when I was a child, usually at my grandfather’s house. The television was a TV with a turn dial from the 1970s that sat in a large ornate wooden frame. There wasn’t cable, there weren’t toys, and the only books in his house were phone books and encyclopedias that were old enough that genotypes used terms like: caucasoid, negroid, and mongoloid. I would turn the TV on and find the channel to see a soft spoken man put on a sweater. I always felt really special when he ended the show with:
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.
However, I also lumped Fred Rogers in with figures like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. I thought he was a character, but when I listened to his biography I realized that was truly his person. More than that, I realized how many dimensions there were to him. Not surprisingly, throughout his novel, it mentioned over and over that people didn’t think Rogers was actually like that. I admittedly was in that boat, even as a child.
Now that I am an adult, I treasure the principles that Rogers advocated for.
I love the dedication to making appropriate children’s programming that Rogers had. I never knew he stood up in the supreme court to express the need for public broadcasting.
I loved how he was genuinely himself. Rogers grew up as a social outcast and essentially played music and with puppets in his attic by himself. He was bullied pretty mercilessly and he later studied at a music conservatory in college. I didn’t realize that Rogers was a classically trained musician who wrote full length operas.
I loved that Rogers was a completely different model of masculinity that is still very underrepresented.
As a child who spent a lot of time being bullied, I began wearing my own personal shield: a cardigan.
I discovered cardigans around the time my body was changing. I learned if I wore one, I could “hide” my body as well as “hide” attention given to it. Wearing a cardigan helped me feel safe, it helped me feel like I wouldn’t be inappropriately touched. I spent a lot of time at friend’s houses hiding myself when a cardigan couldn’t hide me. When friends were parting ways with different choices, I spent a lot of time in my room or on a computer escaping on the internet. When the computer was occupied, I spent a lot of time reading scriptures.
Cardigans helped me feel like I could fade into the background and I’d often wear the same one over and over.
When a restraining order happened at my peak awkwardness in middle school, I felt more safe, but the feeling of security a cardigan gave me didn’t go away.
I still wear cardigans, a lot. Now, they’re a wardrobe treasure instead of a security blanket. They serve as a reminder.
I have often worked with children. I’ve taught in elementary, middle, and high schools. Seeing children who are uncomfortable with their bodies and other aspects of their life, especially in teaching special education, was often the norm. I’ve had students who would express how lonely they are at home sit and eat lunch with me as a reward for finishing their work; I’d sit there eating my food while my student chatted the whole time about things they were struggling with at home. The next day when they came to my class, they were ready and eager to learn.
My heart soared when I saw a student being themselves and loved for it. Kindness is always needed.
Cardigans remind me to be mindful of other people’s struggles and they remind me of Mr. Rogers.
So today, when I put on a cardigan: I put it on for myself as a reminder of the kindness I should always work on extending to others. I put it on as a reminder for the kindness that has been extended to me. I put it on because I think Mr. Rogers was an amazing human.
