Do you and your piano kid share code words? Words or a phrase that has a secret meaning between the two of you? My daughter, Tracy and I will do the ASL sign for I Love You when we see each other in a crowded space.
Our family also has different references or words that recall inside jokes that would be meaningless to anyone else, one of which is “Furniture Lacks Appliances” (you’ll have to ask my son Justin about that!).
When I saw the “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” documentary last year I learned about a special number code Mr. Rogers used and I knew I wanted to share it with you when we got to this episode.
Listen to the full episode here
1 4 3 = I Love You
I don’t know if an event sparked the connection between 143 and “I love you” or if Mr. Rogers simply enjoyed numbers and words like I do but somehow he made the association between those numbers and those special words.
Here is a video of his wife, Joanne, talking about 143 on the Jimmy Falon Show.
After I recorded this podcast and was writing the show notes, I discovered the 143 Club from the Fred Rogers Center. You can read more about it here.
Talk to children as children
One of the many things I loved about Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was his interaction with children.
As a child, I loved hearing him ask the questions I was wondering. He taught me that it was good to be curious and to ask people to explain things to me.
Now that I’m an adult, I love watching video clips to watch how he speaks to children, as children. He speaks slowly and carefully and intentionally in a way they can understand. He knew that preschool-aged children tend to be very literal so he used great care when he spoke to them or spoke on his television show.
These are valuable skills for parents and teachers. Often we err on one side or another. We don’t give our children enough information or we complicate things and confuse them with too much information.
The message in the Music
I didn’t realize, until I watched the documentary, that Mr. Rogers was a musician and composer. He earned his degree from Rolling College in musical composition. (What?!? Now I love him even more!)
He wrote more than 200 songs for the show and used music to connect with his audience. The songs helped to convey emotions children might feel in a way they could understand. Some of the titles include, “There are many ways to say I love you”, “What do you do with the mad you feel”, “Some things I don’t understand”, “Good Feeling” and “I’m proud of you”.
I didn’t realize until I was researching for this episode, that there were three musicians who provided live background music for every show. In this clip, you will see Mr. Rogers walk off the main stage during a show to introduce the musicians to the viewers. What amazing talent those men had to improvise music, read cues from Mr. Rogers’ conversation and segue into a song at just the right time. I have so much respect for them.
Take a look:
He met his wife, Joanne at Rollins College. Joanne, herself is a concert pianist. One the Mister Rogers Neighborhood website, there is a clip of the family when they came for a visit. Joanne and Mr. Rogers play the piano together while the whole family sings! I had never seen that before!
Thank you for giving me the excuse to spend an afternoon “researching”!
Final Thoughts
If you haven’t seen “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” (2018 – Grossed $22.6 million in 2018, one of the top 15 documentaries in U.S. history) please check it out.
I’m looking forward to the movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” coming out later in 2019 starring Tom Hanks. As I understand it, this isn’t a biopic or a documentary, it is based on the true story of a real-life friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod. Their relationship developed from an interview Mr. Junod had with Mr. Rogers.
There is also a book called, “The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers” by Amy Hollingsworth which also describes a unique relationship the author developed with Mr. Rogers after she met him through an interview.
I love this quote from one of the last commencement speeches Mr. Rogers gave in 2002. Our goal as piano parents is to smile our children into smiling, talk them into talking, sing them into singing and, most importantly, love them into loving.
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