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 for teething. Visit Highlands dot com slash kind that's h y l a n ds dot com. Slash kind claims based on traditional homeopathrocractice. Not accept the medical evidence, not ft evaluated. Want to boost your immunity and protect your community. Get a COVID nineteen booster. They help keep you and others safe from the virus and its variants this season and beyond. If it's been at least six months since your last dose of viser or maderna, or at least two months since your last dose of J and J, it's time for a booster. Visit my Turn dot c A dot gov to find a booster near you. Let's keep our immunity strong. Get your booster and a flu shot while you're at it. Two brought to you by the California Department of Public Health. Do you suffer from zoom fatigue? Auto dot ai is here to help. Use atter dot ai to get automatic meeting notes. You can even step away from the meeting and catch up any time it started for free at atter dot ai or download in the app stores. That's otter dot ai. M hm hm. Mr Rogers tried to get us to be our best self. That's a phrase that you know, we hear variations of it a lot now, right, like live your best life, be your best self. What we usually mean by that now is seek pathways to your own joy and the kind of self celebration you want to experience, which I think is great and I am a firm believer in that self love is really radical and important. But when we say that Mr Rogers wanted people to be their best self, there's something about like just encouraging people to be good, right, to be good and to be kind to themselves and to other people that I actually think is a really rare message. I don't know who is telling children or anyone be kind, you know, and in a way that is lived out in their example and not like moralizing or pedantic or condescending. Fred Rogers is everywhere right now, on T shirts and calendars and coffee mugs. There's a movie and multiple books, articles and major magazines and of course this podcast. And it seems to me the reason we're seeing him everywhere is that we believe, collectively there's something in what he taught us that we need right now. But are we understanding the right thing about him and his work? Or are we just in love with the niceness, the nostalgia, the feel good. Not that those are bad things in and of themselves, but are they enough? Is it enough to fall in love with this idea that each of us is likable? Is that even the right idea? Because I don't think that's all there was to his message. I'm Carvil Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers from High Heart Media and Fatherly in partnership with Transmitter Media. Fred Rogers grew up during the Depression, through World War Two and the Holocaust. He had seen how horrible people could be to one another, and his show spoke to that. It launched just months before Bobby Kennedy's assassination, and Fred made a p s A in response to it, and just a few weeks after he officially retired, he made another p s A right after September eleven. We've talked about how Fred didn't want to do the announcement at all in the face of such enormous violence and tragedy. He said he couldn't see how it would do any good, but he did it anyway. The writer and educator e Viewing, who you remember from episode two, was watching there's this video that I've watched a lot where he addresses us as adults. You know. He's saying, sometimes I see you all on the streets. I run into you, those of you who grew up in the neighborhood, you know, And when I see you, I tell you, just like I did when you were very small, that I'm just so proud of you, you know, and I like you just the way you are. A lot of people who heard Fred's p s A took comfort in his message look for the helpers. But Eve heard something else. He is talking to you as an individual, but now as an adult, and that's his opportunity to say something else or to like break this character and the thing he chooses to say is I still see you. I'm still proud of you and see the child in you. And I think that when we talk about forgiving people and not believing in monsters, to me, that's what much of that amounts to, is knowing that everybody was somebody's child, you know, who has been hurt, or who has been afraid, or who's been trying their best to learn, or who's been trying to be resilient in a difficult situation. We've talked about what it means to do what Fred did, listen carefully and speak to the children inside people. But what are we supposed to do when the child is afraid and acting out, throwing tantrums and destroying things. What are we supposed to do when the child inside other people makes them dangerous and destructive, and when that's making us feel afraid like we want to lash out and hurt people who are hurting us. What are we supposed to do then? And who can show us how to act in a world like this one here today? My mom told me all the time and continues to tell me, that you know, your responsibility is to be a light bringer, and your job is to be a door opener, not a gatekeeper. And all of us have that grandma, that neighbor, that uncle, that guy on the corner store. You know. I remember like riding the train with my mom and we didn't have a car, and going down to the train station and there was this South Asian man who ran the convenience store in the train station, and you know, whenever we went to get on the train, he would give me like a small caramel square, you know, those like little cubes, just like a no brand, no name, like caramel cube. And those are the small moments as a kid that I just remember feeling like, oh, I'm somebody. Somebody told me that I was special today. And I think that message can come from a lot of messengers, and definitely race and class and culture and religion and in giag graphie and all those things can make it harder to here, but it usually comes through loud and clear if the person really cares about you. There are helpers everywhere, people who really see us and are kind to us, and there are also people who show us how to be helpers, who model it for us. My paternal grandfather, incidentally, is a white man who is a lay Presbyterian minister. He grew up on a really small farm in the depression in rural Illinois, and in so many ways reminds me of Mr Rogers. He has a uniform like Mr. Rogers. He just wears like short sleeve, button down shirts in the same way that Mr Rogers always wears his card. Again, but my grandfather has children and grandchildren that have lived just radically different lives than him, you know, in terms of like race, class, culture, interests, pol just like everything that you can think of. And he just is such a deeply, deeply kind and caring person. My uncle married a really awesome woman who didn't grow up in the church or anything like that, and I remember she said when she met my grandfather, she was like, Oh, this is the first real Christian I've ever met, Like this is the first person that actually they say they're a Christian and it means that they like do all this stuff that Jesus said to do right. And he's always just made me feel completely unconditionally loved and accepted. But I also see him treat other people that way in a way that makes it clear that it's not just about me being his grandchild, but what he believes about the world. And going to visit my grandparents and just meeting random people that were staying in their house temporarily because that's what they needed in the moment also made a big impression on me as a kid that I could come and meet somebody and just be told like, oh, you know, they needed to stay here for for this period of time because of X y Z. And I think that that idea of an open home quite literal in in both the case of my grandfather and the case of Mr Rogers, right Like, I think that's something also that's not incidental that we're in Mr Rogers's house. He's welcoming us into his house. Eve's grandfather showed her one way to be open and generous in a world that seems hell bent on the opposite. I don't I don't identify as a Christian um, but I think that even though I don't identify that way or as a particularly religious person, I'm nevertheless deeply moved and influenced by a lot of Christian teachings, and one of the Biblical lines that I think about a lot is um the idea of the least of these Jesus says, I'm paraphrasing, but basically like that which you do onto the least of these, you do unto me, and the idea that in every situation, as a society, in a family, in a community, your job is to find the people that are the most vulnerable and to make sure that they're protected. And when you do that, as a general rule of thumb, everything else will be good. Everything else will follow. That's really important to me. You know. After the election in sixteen, my kids were thirteen and eleven, and they said, they said to me, what happened? What happened, like, explained to me what that was? What is happening? And the only explanation that I could come up with was like, well, look, there are some people who believe that it is it is your responsibility to care for others and that that is and that is a primary thing and that you must do that. And then there are some people who think that that is, that it's the responsibility to care for your own and everyone else just needs to figure out for themselves, and that is Ultimately, what appears to have happened last night is that some people who believe that second thing appeared to have gained more power. You know, I was like your mother and I we know what we believe. We believe that we must care for others like that is what we fundamentally believe. We're never not going to believe that that is just who we are, and You're going to have to figure out who you are in the world. You know. I've done a fair amount of teaching in in prisons, and the prison that I teach in is a maximum security prison where people are there for very long term or life sentences. And one of the rules that we have is that we don't we don't ask people like what they did or why they're there. I know just from history that like if not of the people that I'm dealing with in that space are there because of the drug war, are there because of poverty, are there because of unresolved trauma in their own lives. And the idea that like one out of those one hundred might just actually be a psychopath doesn't make it worth it for me to focus on that to me, remote possibley when I could be focusing on like the human conversation that we're going to have. And so to me, that's that's the idea of of grace is just like assuming even if you can't quite work your way up to loving people, which is like the Jesus standard. And it's okay for us to not all be Jesus, at least understanding that people are human beings and not not monsters. You've heard me ask a lot of people, how I like you just the way you are? Applies to those who hurt us, who hurt others, who are hurting whole groups of people and tearing apart families and communities and institutions that do good in the world. Would Fred Rogers like them just the way they are? Eaves says, that's the wrong question. We spent a lot of time asking the question like what about the bad people, like are we adequately punishing the bad people, which usually is a distraction from making sure that the sin who's actually been hurt is okay. And we've set up a society where we tend to be really obsessed with punishing people rather than actually caring for the people that have been harmed. And that is a disregard that shows a disregard for the idea of caring for the least of these. And if you believe that most of those bad things themselves come from un dealt with harm, than the best thing that we can do is deal with the harm. In Mark, Jesus says, the poor you will always have with you, and you can help them whenever you want, but you will not always have me. The idea is that one day Jesus would leave his followers. Like all things he was saying, his presence is impermanent. The only permanent thing is that people will still need help, and we must continue to help those who need it. Notice he asn't say I'm gonna be gone, so I'm gonna need you to keep on crushing all the bad guys and making sure they learn their lessons. Like Eves said, his focus is not unfixing the bad ones, but on helping the needy ones. But that's hard. Sometimes Sometimes I feel like I have to keep an eye on what I'm afraid of or what can hurt me. I have to make sure it's locked away or properly defended against. The things I'm afraid of are so loud and bright and distracting that it's hard to turn my attention away from them, even for a moment. Hard to give up on the idea that my job is to make sure the bad people suffer. It's hard to do the quieter and slower and maybe more vulnerable work of tending to the people who have been wounded. I often feel too scared and angry and hurt to do that. I feel like I have too many people to protect. And maybe that's why Fred Rogers was so focused on finding a way to talk about our feelings, because maybe I can't really help people until I spend a lot of time sitting with my own hurt more in a minute, Teething can 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 us the pain. It's gentle, natural, active ingredients like camemil 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 y l A and ds dot com. Slash kind claims based on additional homeopathrocraphic is not accept The medical evidence not ft evaluated. Do you suffer from zoom fatigue? With so many meetings each day? Who can remember the key takeaways. Try otter dot ai to capture automatic live notes for meetings, interviewser lectures. You can search the meeting notes, highlight action items, share the notes with your co workers, and also play back the audio. Can't join a meeting, no worries. Send your auto assistant to capture the notes for you. Otter dot ai works for in person and virtual meetings like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google meet Get started for free at autter dot ai or download in the app stores. That's otter dot ai. The more we learn about COVID nineteen, the more questions we have. The biggest question now, what's next? What will COVID bring in six months a year? If you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. Cal Hope offers free COVID nineteen emotional support. Call eight three three four six seven three or live chat at cal hope dot org today. One of the things that Fred Todd is that in a child, every behavior is a way the child communicates an underlying need. If we were to apply that not just to children, but to grown ups, we may find a behavior objectionable, or we may find something that someone says objectionable. We may find another person's opinion objectionable, but if we look deeper and see what is the human need behind that, it doesn't mean we have to agree with their opinions and actions and words, but it does mean that we should and can have m pasty and have a connection with the underlying human need. This is John lay Lee. He is a senior lecturer in Early childhood Education at Harvard. He spent much of his professional career studying Fred's work. He was co director of the Fred Rogers Center at St. Vincent's College, and one of the courses he teaches at Harvard is about simple Interactions, a way of working with kids that's based in part on the work of Fred Rogers. Jen lay also knows something about the dark side of human behavior. He was born in Shanghai at the tail end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies. The Chinese states sent millions of people who they decided were bad neighbors in their eyes into forced labor and exile, and murdered countless more. Jen Ley's parents were sent to do manual work and rule China. He was often separated from one or both of them. This was not a culture of I like you just the way you are. General moved to America at sixteen and discovered Mr Rogers neighborhood in college where he was studying child development. Fred's message of love and acceptance came as a revelation and became gen Lay's model for how to communicate with both children and adults. He told me that Fred became a personal role model too, and before we get into it, you should probably take a deep breath and relax, because generally has a very thoughtful Fred rogers like demeanor. I initially came to make available educational opportunities for all children, but over time I think it becomes more and more about how we can find people all around the world who are doing that are the kind of people that Fred would call heroes, um their ordinary heroes. I came into the field very much want to be a helper, and twenty years later I realized that perhaps the best thing I could do is to find these helpers that are already out there and do my best to support them helps exactly helping the helpers. I think the most important lesson that I took from Fred was this idea that if you looked carefully around you, no matter where you are, if you looked carefully, you will find that there are people that are helping one another. The kindness and trust and respect that are exemplified by Fred's work is visible in real human communities. Not everyone talks just like Mr Rogers or anything, but the way they listen to children, the way they are able to pay attention to not just what the child acts out on the surface, but what do these behaviors tell us about the inner needs of the child or the young person? You know. I want to ask you a little bit about today's context, um, because I when I look around, I see a lot of fear and anger and frustration, and and a feeling that things are rapidly getting worse in a in a myriad of ways, and people feeling helpless and hopeless. I wonder if you can imagine what kind of show he would make today. Do you think he would continue along the same path or would he find that he would have to do something different. That's such a good question, and I can't begin to imagine that I know what he would do. But I think the underlying topic that Fred was so interested in perhaps centers around this idea of empathy. Fred's show is about confronting struggles and conflicts rather than evading them. People of different ideas, different values trying to work out their differences and still operate on assumption of trust and respect for one another. And I think Fred's work very strongly conveyed that a community is a place where not everyone has to look the same, not everyone even have to have the same interests, which who's to live the same way? Um like, community is simply a place where very diverse people get to live together, to listen to one another and work through the differences that they have. I think in a fearful world, we have a tendency to accentuate every aspect that is different between person one and person two. And as much as Fred wanted to convey the message that all of us are different and unique and special, Fred's underlying message, though, is we are much more the same than we're different, and that paradoxically, by point hinting out the uniqueness of each individual, we actually come to understand our common humanity. And that, to me is perhaps the spiritual root of empathy. To be able to see the full humanity of the person that we might fear. Mm hm, you know that is such a weighty and heavy concept in this time. Um, we live in a world in which there are systemic abuses of people, and people feel the need to defend themselves not just against individuals, but against systems, and and I think a lot of times in those cases, people feel like there's there's a there's a threat to their survival that comes with that empathy that in order to protect themselves and their families and who they love, they can't allow themselves that empathy. You know, if you are a targeted group in a genocide, is their use for you in finding empathy for the person on the other side of the friends. Fred often talked about the lesson the most important lesson that he took from he's theology professor in Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which he went to ask this professor one time what this particularly him means because the him said something about, you know, the one thing, the one small thing that made evil fall. And so he went to ask the professor, you know what is this one small thing? And the answer was the one thing that evil cannot stand is forgiveness. And I think as I read about the error in which my parents and grandparents lived through. I think of a story. There was an older gentleman that was very close to my family. He was from West Virginia and became a minister, and he and his wife and son were missionaries in China, and after the World War two broke out, they were taken by the Japanese and put inside a fairly bruto concentration camp. And one of the commanders of the camp were humane to the American prisoners, and the minister, his name is Joe. Years later he sat down in a Japanese house across the table from the commander of the concentration camp, and the two of them shared the tea, a cup of tea, and and I just think of these things. They're almost illogical, but they are a reflection of the fundamental trust that human beings, as much as they're capable of evil and hatred, and and as much as all of us have our fears and defensiveness, that in the end, I think when Fred tells us that we are special, he meant that there's something deep down inside each of us, not just some of us, but each of us without which humanity cannot survive. In his public service, announcements following September eleven. He invoked I think the Jewish saying that essentially means we are called to be repairs of creation. And we can understand that in more broadly outside the religious context as somehow that each of us are called to be repairs of creation. And what does repairing mean? Each of us is called to be a repairer of creation? But how do we do that? I think for everyone, though the question is the same, the answer can be different. Not all of us can sit down to tea with someone who represents the violent forces of the state. The man from West Virginia, the John Laigh talked about, could, but many of us cannot and maybe should not. And there's good reason for that. If someone breaks into your home and harms your family or loved ones in some violent way, and then I decide to sit down with them the next day for a pleasant tea under the guise of forgiveness and radical empathy, that may be a dramatic, heroic act for me, but it might be incredibly disrespectful and harmful to you. We're told all the time that the ultimate act of love is to forgive the people who have hurt you. And that anything less is a shortcoming, maybe an understandable one, but a shortcoming nonetheless something to get over. But who benefits most from the quick and incessant march towards forgiveness? Isn't it often those who commit the heinous act to begin with? Don't they want, deeply want for their victims to hug them and to player that it's all good. Wouldn't you have you ever harmed someone? Have you ever participated in or benefited from someone's arm? Wouldn't you want them to forgive you? The idea of forgiving one's enemies loving one's enemies is a beautiful one, and maybe even an ideal one, But it's also a complicated one. Sometimes an act of love and caring toward an oppressor is an act of harm toward the oppressed, or toward ourselves. TV writer Megan Amram, a brilliant person in her own right, put this idea very succinctly on Twitter quote you can't be nice to everyone because being nice to certain people is inherently cruel to others. The viewing is right that after a point, it's not helpful to focus on what to do about the bad people. That's why I'm grateful that there are are other ways to be repairers of creation. Eve teaches in an incarceration facility. I'm using my own holiday party in my tiny little apartment to raise money for victims of domestic violence, people who aren't able to celebrate with friends and family as maybe we are. There are acts of kindness towards children. The woman who raised me used to go to the library to read stories to foster kids. She also took in stray animals, and even once she took in a stray kid named Carvel. But more than that, there is the love and kindness and acceptance that we show towards those who are struggling and hurting in our families and our communities. There is the willingness to listen, to hear, and perhaps most importantly, to grow and change in response to the pain of others. There is looking, really looking for what is special, what is childlike, maybe even what is God like? And each and every person that we encounter. That is what Fred was showing us with the neighborhood. He was showing us what it feels like to be treated as special and important and necessary. He was showing each of us has something inside of us that humanity needs, and for that reason alone, we are valuable. And our task is not only to help see and grow that valuable thing in each other, it is to see and grow it within ourselves. And even though the world isn't what it was when Fred created his TV neighborhood in even if our lives seem more complicated and difficult, there are people all around us who are actively helping to make things better. There are people alive right now who are showing us how to make it better too. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in stories of people who have shown you how to be a helper. Here's one message we received from a listener named Juan Helloa um here in Hawaii, actually on my way to my school where I'm a teacher. I've been listening to your podcasts and it's just inspired me. And every time I listened to it, I think about one person who when I was growing up back in New York in a small suburb, white neighborhood, I was kind of an outcast because my family was a Hispanic family and we never had too many friends besides our family. But there was a lady down the block. Named Denise and her and her son Jesse, they would always always just be there for us. My father was working two jobs, my mother never drove. So Denise is the first that really took me out of the community and to be on the neighborhood. She was the first person to teach me to the ocean, which now living in Hawaii means so much to me. She took me to museums, she let me write books at her house, and these kind of moments of joy are things that I really stick with me still, and even though like I'm not the best teacher by any means, I think that that's something that's fundamentally what I try and do daily. So I just want to give a big shout out Denise and so the whole family, Jesse, Charlie, Brianna. They were all there for me. But I definitely remember just as a as a rock in my life and just show me what it's like to be a good neighbor, literally a good neighbor right down the block. I hope you have a good one and more of that next week and our final episode of Finding Fred. Finding Fred is produced by Transmitter Media. Our team is Dan o'donald Jordan Bailey and Maddie Foley. Our editor is Sarah Nis. The executive producer for Transmitter Media is Gretta Cone. Executive producers at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs and Andrew Berman. Thanks to the team and I Heart Media. 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 Carvil Wallace. Thank you for listening. 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 soothe 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 for teething. Visit Highlands dot com. Slash kind that's h y l a n DS dot com slash kind claims based on traditional homeopath a practice, not accept the medical evidence. Not FD evaluated what spring like in winter's favorite town, park City, Utah. Imagine waking up on a blue bird day to ski the greatest snow on Earth. Having three resorts, Park City, Mountain, Deer Valley in Woodwork, Park City in your backyard, Exploring miles of wide open spaces by snowshoe or cross country skis. Wandering our historic main street with its opera, ski scene and award winning restaurants to discover spring in winter's favorite town. Learn to visit safely at visit park City dot com. The more we learn about COVID nineteen, the more questions we have. The biggest question now, what's next? What will COVID bring in six months a year? If you're feeling anxious about the future, You're not alone. Cal Hope offers free COVID nineteen emotional support. Call eight three three three one seven four six seven three or live chat at calhope dot org today

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 for teething. Visit Highlands dot com slash kind that's h y l a n ds dot com. Slash kind claims based on traditional homeopathrocractice. Not accept the medical evidence, not ft evaluated. Want to boost your immunity and protect your community. Get a COVID nineteen booster. They help keep you and others safe from the virus and its variants this season and beyond. If it's been at least six months since your last dose of viser or maderna, or at least two months since your last dose of J and J, it's time for a booster. Visit my Turn dot c A dot gov to find a booster near you. Let's keep our immunity strong. Get your booster and a flu shot while you're at it. Two brought to you by the California Department of Public Health. Do you suffer from zoom fatigue? Auto dot ai is here to help. Use atter dot ai to get automatic meeting notes. You can even step away from the meeting and catch up any time it started for free at atter dot ai or download in the app stores. That's otter dot ai. M hm hm. Mr Rogers tried to get us to be our best self. That's a phrase that you know, we hear variations of it a lot now, right, like live your best life, be your best self. What we usually mean by that now is seek pathways to your own joy and the kind of self celebration you want to experience, which I think is great and I am a firm believer in that self love is really radical and important. But when we say that Mr Rogers wanted people to be their best self, there's something about like just encouraging people to be good, right, to be good and to be kind to themselves and to other people that I actually think is a really rare message. I don't know who is telling children or anyone be kind, you know, and in a way that is lived out in their example and not like moralizing or pedantic or condescending. Fred Rogers is everywhere right now, on T shirts and calendars and coffee mugs. There's a movie and multiple books, articles and major magazines and of course this podcast. And it seems to me the reason we're seeing him everywhere is that we believe, collectively there's something in what he taught us that we need right now. But are we understanding the right thing about him and his work? Or are we just in love with the niceness, the nostalgia, the feel good. Not that those are bad things in and of themselves, but are they enough? Is it enough to fall in love with this idea that each of us is likable? Is that even the right idea? Because I don't think that's all there was to his message. I'm Carvil Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers from High Heart Media and Fatherly in partnership with Transmitter Media. Fred Rogers grew up during the Depression, through World War Two and the Holocaust. He had seen how horrible people could be to one another, and his show spoke to that. It launched just months before Bobby Kennedy's assassination, and Fred made a p s A in response to it, and just a few weeks after he officially retired, he made another p s A right after September eleven. We've talked about how Fred didn't want to do the announcement at all in the face of such enormous violence and tragedy. He said he couldn't see how it would do any good, but he did it anyway. The writer and educator e Viewing, who you remember from episode two, was watching there's this video that I've watched a lot where he addresses us as adults. You know. He's saying, sometimes I see you all on the streets. I run into you, those of you who grew up in the neighborhood, you know, And when I see you, I tell you, just like I did when you were very small, that I'm just so proud of you, you know, and I like you just the way you are. A lot of people who heard Fred's p s A took comfort in his message look for the helpers. But Eve heard something else. He is talking to you as an individual, but now as an adult, and that's his opportunity to say something else or to like break this character and the thing he chooses to say is I still see you. I'm still proud of you and see the child in you. And I think that when we talk about forgiving people and not believing in monsters, to me, that's what much of that amounts to, is knowing that everybody was somebody's child, you know, who has been hurt, or who has been afraid, or who's been trying their best to learn, or who's been trying to be resilient in a difficult situation. We've talked about what it means to do what Fred did, listen carefully and speak to the children inside people. But what are we supposed to do when the child is afraid and acting out, throwing tantrums and destroying things. What are we supposed to do when the child inside other people makes them dangerous and destructive, and when that's making us feel afraid like we want to lash out and hurt people who are hurting us. What are we supposed to do then? And who can show us how to act in a world like this one here today? My mom told me all the time and continues to tell me, that you know, your responsibility is to be a light bringer, and your job is to be a door opener, not a gatekeeper. And all of us have that grandma, that neighbor, that uncle, that guy on the corner store. You know. I remember like riding the train with my mom and we didn't have a car, and going down to the train station and there was this South Asian man who ran the convenience store in the train station, and you know, whenever we went to get on the train, he would give me like a small caramel square, you know, those like little cubes, just like a no brand, no name, like caramel cube. And those are the small moments as a kid that I just remember feeling like, oh, I'm somebody. Somebody told me that I was special today. And I think that message can come from a lot of messengers, and definitely race and class and culture and religion and in giag graphie and all those things can make it harder to here, but it usually comes through loud and clear if the person really cares about you. There are helpers everywhere, people who really see us and are kind to us, and there are also people who show us how to be helpers, who model it for us. My paternal grandfather, incidentally, is a white man who is a lay Presbyterian minister. He grew up on a really small farm in the depression in rural Illinois, and in so many ways reminds me of Mr Rogers. He has a uniform like Mr. Rogers. He just wears like short sleeve, button down shirts in the same way that Mr Rogers always wears his card. Again, but my grandfather has children and grandchildren that have lived just radically different lives than him, you know, in terms of like race, class, culture, interests, pol just like everything that you can think of. And he just is such a deeply, deeply kind and caring person. My uncle married a really awesome woman who didn't grow up in the church or anything like that, and I remember she said when she met my grandfather, she was like, Oh, this is the first real Christian I've ever met, Like this is the first person that actually they say they're a Christian and it means that they like do all this stuff that Jesus said to do right. And he's always just made me feel completely unconditionally loved and accepted. But I also see him treat other people that way in a way that makes it clear that it's not just about me being his grandchild, but what he believes about the world. And going to visit my grandparents and just meeting random people that were staying in their house temporarily because that's what they needed in the moment also made a big impression on me as a kid that I could come and meet somebody and just be told like, oh, you know, they needed to stay here for for this period of time because of X y Z. And I think that that idea of an open home quite literal in in both the case of my grandfather and the case of Mr Rogers, right Like, I think that's something also that's not incidental that we're in Mr Rogers's house. He's welcoming us into his house. Eve's grandfather showed her one way to be open and generous in a world that seems hell bent on the opposite. I don't I don't identify as a Christian um, but I think that even though I don't identify that way or as a particularly religious person, I'm nevertheless deeply moved and influenced by a lot of Christian teachings, and one of the Biblical lines that I think about a lot is um the idea of the least of these Jesus says, I'm paraphrasing, but basically like that which you do onto the least of these, you do unto me, and the idea that in every situation, as a society, in a family, in a community, your job is to find the people that are the most vulnerable and to make sure that they're protected. And when you do that, as a general rule of thumb, everything else will be good. Everything else will follow. That's really important to me. You know. After the election in sixteen, my kids were thirteen and eleven, and they said, they said to me, what happened? What happened, like, explained to me what that was? What is happening? And the only explanation that I could come up with was like, well, look, there are some people who believe that it is it is your responsibility to care for others and that that is and that is a primary thing and that you must do that. And then there are some people who think that that is, that it's the responsibility to care for your own and everyone else just needs to figure out for themselves, and that is Ultimately, what appears to have happened last night is that some people who believe that second thing appeared to have gained more power. You know, I was like your mother and I we know what we believe. We believe that we must care for others like that is what we fundamentally believe. We're never not going to believe that that is just who we are, and You're going to have to figure out who you are in the world. You know. I've done a fair amount of teaching in in prisons, and the prison that I teach in is a maximum security prison where people are there for very long term or life sentences. And one of the rules that we have is that we don't we don't ask people like what they did or why they're there. I know just from history that like if not of the people that I'm dealing with in that space are there because of the drug war, are there because of poverty, are there because of unresolved trauma in their own lives. And the idea that like one out of those one hundred might just actually be a psychopath doesn't make it worth it for me to focus on that to me, remote possibley when I could be focusing on like the human conversation that we're going to have. And so to me, that's that's the idea of of grace is just like assuming even if you can't quite work your way up to loving people, which is like the Jesus standard. And it's okay for us to not all be Jesus, at least understanding that people are human beings and not not monsters. You've heard me ask a lot of people, how I like you just the way you are? Applies to those who hurt us, who hurt others, who are hurting whole groups of people and tearing apart families and communities and institutions that do good in the world. Would Fred Rogers like them just the way they are? Eaves says, that's the wrong question. We spent a lot of time asking the question like what about the bad people, like are we adequately punishing the bad people, which usually is a distraction from making sure that the sin who's actually been hurt is okay. And we've set up a society where we tend to be really obsessed with punishing people rather than actually caring for the people that have been harmed. And that is a disregard that shows a disregard for the idea of caring for the least of these. And if you believe that most of those bad things themselves come from un dealt with harm, than the best thing that we can do is deal with the harm. In Mark, Jesus says, the poor you will always have with you, and you can help them whenever you want, but you will not always have me. The idea is that one day Jesus would leave his followers. Like all things he was saying, his presence is impermanent. The only permanent thing is that people will still need help, and we must continue to help those who need it. Notice he asn't say I'm gonna be gone, so I'm gonna need you to keep on crushing all the bad guys and making sure they learn their lessons. Like Eves said, his focus is not unfixing the bad ones, but on helping the needy ones. But that's hard. Sometimes Sometimes I feel like I have to keep an eye on what I'm afraid of or what can hurt me. I have to make sure it's locked away or properly defended against. The things I'm afraid of are so loud and bright and distracting that it's hard to turn my attention away from them, even for a moment. Hard to give up on the idea that my job is to make sure the bad people suffer. It's hard to do the quieter and slower and maybe more vulnerable work of tending to the people who have been wounded. I often feel too scared and angry and hurt to do that. I feel like I have too many people to protect. And maybe that's why Fred Rogers was so focused on finding a way to talk about our feelings, because maybe I can't really help people until I spend a lot of time sitting with my own hurt more in a minute, Teething can 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 us the pain. It's gentle, natural, active ingredients like camemil 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 y l A and ds dot com. Slash kind claims based on additional homeopathrocraphic is not accept The medical evidence not ft evaluated. Do you suffer from zoom fatigue? With so many meetings each day? Who can remember the key takeaways. Try otter dot ai to capture automatic live notes for meetings, interviewser lectures. You can search the meeting notes, highlight action items, share the notes with your co workers, and also play back the audio. Can't join a meeting, no worries. Send your auto assistant to capture the notes for you. Otter dot ai works for in person and virtual meetings like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google meet Get started for free at autter dot ai or download in the app stores. That's otter dot ai. The more we learn about COVID nineteen, the more questions we have. The biggest question now, what's next? What will COVID bring in six months a year? If you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. Cal Hope offers free COVID nineteen emotional support. Call eight three three four six seven three or live chat at cal hope dot org today. One of the things that Fred Todd is that in a child, every behavior is a way the child communicates an underlying need. If we were to apply that not just to children, but to grown ups, we may find a behavior objectionable, or we may find something that someone says objectionable. We may find another person's opinion objectionable, but if we look deeper and see what is the human need behind that, it doesn't mean we have to agree with their opinions and actions and words, but it does mean that we should and can have m pasty and have a connection with the underlying human need. This is John lay Lee. He is a senior lecturer in Early childhood Education at Harvard. He spent much of his professional career studying Fred's work. He was co director of the Fred Rogers Center at St. Vincent's College, and one of the courses he teaches at Harvard is about simple Interactions, a way of working with kids that's based in part on the work of Fred Rogers. Jen lay also knows something about the dark side of human behavior. He was born in Shanghai at the tail end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies. The Chinese states sent millions of people who they decided were bad neighbors in their eyes into forced labor and exile, and murdered countless more. Jen Ley's parents were sent to do manual work and rule China. He was often separated from one or both of them. This was not a culture of I like you just the way you are. General moved to America at sixteen and discovered Mr Rogers neighborhood in college where he was studying child development. Fred's message of love and acceptance came as a revelation and became gen Lay's model for how to communicate with both children and adults. He told me that Fred became a personal role model too, and before we get into it, you should probably take a deep breath and relax, because generally has a very thoughtful Fred rogers like demeanor. I initially came to make available educational opportunities for all children, but over time I think it becomes more and more about how we can find people all around the world who are doing that are the kind of people that Fred would call heroes, um their ordinary heroes. I came into the field very much want to be a helper, and twenty years later I realized that perhaps the best thing I could do is to find these helpers that are already out there and do my best to support them helps exactly helping the helpers. I think the most important lesson that I took from Fred was this idea that if you looked carefully around you, no matter where you are, if you looked carefully, you will find that there are people that are helping one another. The kindness and trust and respect that are exemplified by Fred's work is visible in real human communities. Not everyone talks just like Mr Rogers or anything, but the way they listen to children, the way they are able to pay attention to not just what the child acts out on the surface, but what do these behaviors tell us about the inner needs of the child or the young person? You know. I want to ask you a little bit about today's context, um, because I when I look around, I see a lot of fear and anger and frustration, and and a feeling that things are rapidly getting worse in a in a myriad of ways, and people feeling helpless and hopeless. I wonder if you can imagine what kind of show he would make today. Do you think he would continue along the same path or would he find that he would have to do something different. That's such a good question, and I can't begin to imagine that I know what he would do. But I think the underlying topic that Fred was so interested in perhaps centers around this idea of empathy. Fred's show is about confronting struggles and conflicts rather than evading them. People of different ideas, different values trying to work out their differences and still operate on assumption of trust and respect for one another. And I think Fred's work very strongly conveyed that a community is a place where not everyone has to look the same, not everyone even have to have the same interests, which who's to live the same way? Um like, community is simply a place where very diverse people get to live together, to listen to one another and work through the differences that they have. I think in a fearful world, we have a tendency to accentuate every aspect that is different between person one and person two. And as much as Fred wanted to convey the message that all of us are different and unique and special, Fred's underlying message, though, is we are much more the same than we're different, and that paradoxically, by point hinting out the uniqueness of each individual, we actually come to understand our common humanity. And that, to me is perhaps the spiritual root of empathy. To be able to see the full humanity of the person that we might fear. Mm hm, you know that is such a weighty and heavy concept in this time. Um, we live in a world in which there are systemic abuses of people, and people feel the need to defend themselves not just against individuals, but against systems, and and I think a lot of times in those cases, people feel like there's there's a there's a threat to their survival that comes with that empathy that in order to protect themselves and their families and who they love, they can't allow themselves that empathy. You know, if you are a targeted group in a genocide, is their use for you in finding empathy for the person on the other side of the friends. Fred often talked about the lesson the most important lesson that he took from he's theology professor in Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which he went to ask this professor one time what this particularly him means because the him said something about, you know, the one thing, the one small thing that made evil fall. And so he went to ask the professor, you know what is this one small thing? And the answer was the one thing that evil cannot stand is forgiveness. And I think as I read about the error in which my parents and grandparents lived through. I think of a story. There was an older gentleman that was very close to my family. He was from West Virginia and became a minister, and he and his wife and son were missionaries in China, and after the World War two broke out, they were taken by the Japanese and put inside a fairly bruto concentration camp. And one of the commanders of the camp were humane to the American prisoners, and the minister, his name is Joe. Years later he sat down in a Japanese house across the table from the commander of the concentration camp, and the two of them shared the tea, a cup of tea, and and I just think of these things. They're almost illogical, but they are a reflection of the fundamental trust that human beings, as much as they're capable of evil and hatred, and and as much as all of us have our fears and defensiveness, that in the end, I think when Fred tells us that we are special, he meant that there's something deep down inside each of us, not just some of us, but each of us without which humanity cannot survive. In his public service, announcements following September eleven. He invoked I think the Jewish saying that essentially means we are called to be repairs of creation. And we can understand that in more broadly outside the religious context as somehow that each of us are called to be repairs of creation. And what does repairing mean? Each of us is called to be a repairer of creation? But how do we do that? I think for everyone, though the question is the same, the answer can be different. Not all of us can sit down to tea with someone who represents the violent forces of the state. The man from West Virginia, the John Laigh talked about, could, but many of us cannot and maybe should not. And there's good reason for that. If someone breaks into your home and harms your family or loved ones in some violent way, and then I decide to sit down with them the next day for a pleasant tea under the guise of forgiveness and radical empathy, that may be a dramatic, heroic act for me, but it might be incredibly disrespectful and harmful to you. We're told all the time that the ultimate act of love is to forgive the people who have hurt you. And that anything less is a shortcoming, maybe an understandable one, but a shortcoming nonetheless something to get over. But who benefits most from the quick and incessant march towards forgiveness? Isn't it often those who commit the heinous act to begin with? Don't they want, deeply want for their victims to hug them and to player that it's all good. Wouldn't you have you ever harmed someone? Have you ever participated in or benefited from someone's arm? Wouldn't you want them to forgive you? The idea of forgiving one's enemies loving one's enemies is a beautiful one, and maybe even an ideal one, But it's also a complicated one. Sometimes an act of love and caring toward an oppressor is an act of harm toward the oppressed, or toward ourselves. TV writer Megan Amram, a brilliant person in her own right, put this idea very succinctly on Twitter quote you can't be nice to everyone because being nice to certain people is inherently cruel to others. The viewing is right that after a point, it's not helpful to focus on what to do about the bad people. That's why I'm grateful that there are are other ways to be repairers of creation. Eve teaches in an incarceration facility. I'm using my own holiday party in my tiny little apartment to raise money for victims of domestic violence, people who aren't able to celebrate with friends and family as maybe we are. There are acts of kindness towards children. The woman who raised me used to go to the library to read stories to foster kids. She also took in stray animals, and even once she took in a stray kid named Carvel. But more than that, there is the love and kindness and acceptance that we show towards those who are struggling and hurting in our families and our communities. There is the willingness to listen, to hear, and perhaps most importantly, to grow and change in response to the pain of others. There is looking, really looking for what is special, what is childlike, maybe even what is God like? And each and every person that we encounter. That is what Fred was showing us with the neighborhood. He was showing us what it feels like to be treated as special and important and necessary. He was showing each of us has something inside of us that humanity needs, and for that reason alone, we are valuable. And our task is not only to help see and grow that valuable thing in each other, it is to see and grow it within ourselves. And even though the world isn't what it was when Fred created his TV neighborhood in even if our lives seem more complicated and difficult, there are people all around us who are actively helping to make things better. There are people alive right now who are showing us how to make it better too. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in stories of people who have shown you how to be a helper. Here's one message we received from a listener named Juan Helloa um here in Hawaii, actually on my way to my school where I'm a teacher. I've been listening to your podcasts and it's just inspired me. And every time I listened to it, I think about one person who when I was growing up back in New York in a small suburb, white neighborhood, I was kind of an outcast because my family was a Hispanic family and we never had too many friends besides our family. But there was a lady down the block. Named Denise and her and her son Jesse, they would always always just be there for us. My father was working two jobs, my mother never drove. So Denise is the first that really took me out of the community and to be on the neighborhood. She was the first person to teach me to the ocean, which now living in Hawaii means so much to me. She took me to museums, she let me write books at her house, and these kind of moments of joy are things that I really stick with me still, and even though like I'm not the best teacher by any means, I think that that's something that's fundamentally what I try and do daily. So I just want to give a big shout out Denise and so the whole family, Jesse, Charlie, Brianna. They were all there for me. But I definitely remember just as a as a rock in my life and just show me what it's like to be a good neighbor, literally a good neighbor right down the block. I hope you have a good one and more of that next week and our final episode of Finding Fred. Finding Fred is produced by Transmitter Media. Our team is Dan o'donald Jordan Bailey and Maddie Foley. Our editor is Sarah Nis. The executive producer for Transmitter Media is Gretta Cone. Executive producers at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs and Andrew Berman. Thanks to the team and I Heart Media. 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 Carvil Wallace. Thank you for listening. 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 soothe 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 for teething. Visit Highlands dot com. Slash kind that's h y l a n DS dot com slash kind claims based on traditional homeopath a practice, not accept the medical evidence. Not FD evaluated what spring like in winter's favorite town, park City, Utah. Imagine waking up on a blue bird day to ski the greatest snow on Earth. Having three resorts, Park City, Mountain, Deer Valley in Woodwork, Park City in your backyard, Exploring miles of wide open spaces by snowshoe or cross country skis. Wandering our historic main street with its opera, ski scene and award winning restaurants to discover spring in winter's favorite town. Learn to visit safely at visit park City dot com. The more we learn about COVID nineteen, the more questions we have. The biggest question now, what's next? What will COVID bring in six months a year? If you're feeling anxious about the future, You're not alone. Cal Hope offers free COVID nineteen emotional support. Call eight three three three one seven four six seven three or live chat at calhope dot org today