Parenting Excerpts

Many Ways t Say I Love You: Wisdom for Parents and Children from Mister Rogers

by Fred Rogers

Reprinted with permission from Hyperion Books.

Excerpted here for your enjoyment is a selection from a collection of reflections on the joys and challenges of family life from Mister Rogers.

 My own wish for children and parents alike is that they learn to find love and joy even amidst the world’s and their own imperfections…

The roots of a child’s ability to cope and thrive, regardless of circumstance, lie in that child’s having had at least a small, safe place (an apartment, a room, a lap) in which, in the companionship of a loving person, that child could discover that he or she was loveable and capable of loving in return. If a child finds this during the first years of life, he or she can grow up to be a competent, healthy person.

 What a miracle of continuity each new baby brings into this world! A firstborn, particularly, may arouse in his or her parents feelings that are both very new and very old. And as we adjust to parenthood, we bring to the task so much that comes from the way our parents raised us and their parents raised them…and so on, back to times and people and places that no one can any longer remember. Becoming a parent does bring new feelings, but in another sense, those feelings are as old as mankind.

 Being a giver grows out of the experience of having been a receiver – a receiver who has been lovingly given to.

 Since we were children once, the roots for our empathy are already planted within us. We’ve known what it was like to feel small and powerless, helpless and confused. When we can feel something of what our children might be feeling, it will help us begin to figure out what our children need from us.

 It may be a little easier if we know ahead of time that some of the intensity we feel as we try to help our own children with their hard times is very likely related to what we went through ourselves when we were children. Even if our childhoods were relatively problem-free, growing always presents us with difficulties to be overcome…and the memories of these difficulties are so easily awakened as our children encounter similar difficulties of their own.

 A mother said to me: “I wonder how many parents feel the way I do – trying to juggle the raising of our own children while I’m still sorting out my own childhood problems!”
 I tried to reassure her that most parents probably had those same feelings. After thinking about it, though, I realized that she had touched on an important part of what raising children means to all of us.

When a person becomes a parent, he or she will not only live through the experiences of the new child but will relive many of the experiences of the old child he or she once was. Reliving is an inseparable part of parenting.

How we dealt with our own earliest experiences has a lot to do with how we cope with the ones that come later – and with how we help our children encounter their first challenges. For instance, if we had a fearful and difficult time getting injections at the doctor’s office when we were little and really hated it, that is going to affect our ability to help our children through their own experiences with injections and doctors. Children pick up very quickly on how we are feeling at times that are difficult for them – to the point that our feelings become part of their feelings. Feelings from childhood – both the pleasant and the tough – never go away. They may get hidden, but they’re always part of who we are.

You can see/purchase the book “Many Ways to Say I Love You” here:

back to nutsense