Yellow Bird: Mister Rogers was like an elder

MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2003

"Children will miss the soft-spoken, gentle Fred Rogers of Public Television's "Mister Rogers Neighborhood." He will be missed because he provided millions of children with a parentlike figure who gently helped children understand their own neighborhoods. He taught difficult issues such as death and divorce using characters such as Queen Sara, Henrietta Pussycat and X the Owl.

Rogers was like an Indian grandparent. Grandparents and elders also were teachers who helped the young Native children learn life lessons, only the grandparents used animals such as the coyote, crow or buffalo.

Mister Rogers was 12 years older than I am, so he wasn't on television when I was between 4 and 6 years old - the target age of his programming. Well, actually television wasn't invented when I was between 4 and 6, either.

But he did make an impression on me when I was a young mother who chose programming for her children.

Get the Story:
DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: Lessons of Mister Rogers, Native elders endure test of time (The Grand Forks Herald 3/1)

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