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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

The show’s final cuts reflected many similarly exacting interventions. Once, Rogers provided new lyrics for the “Tomorrow” song that ended each show, to ensure that children watching on Friday wouldn’t expect a show on Saturday, when the show didn’t air. And Rogers’s secretary, Elaine Lynch, remembered how, when one script referred to putting a pet “to sleep,” he excised it for fear that children would be worried about the idea of falling asleep themselves.

Rogers was extraordinarily good at imagining where children’s minds might go.

The more I learn about him, the more I feel he was underappreciated in his time.

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Sesame Street took a similar tack when Mr. Hooper died [1].

I was a rather literal child and was often frustrated by adults' use of such euphemisms for death ("in a better place", "passed on", "asleep forever", etc.) as I considered it deceitful and patronizing. It's nice to know that there are children's shows that deal with such an uncomfortable fact of existence with plain language and dignity.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NjFbz6vGU8

Gotta NSFW tag this or something. Hit with these first grade memories.

Those lines

> "Big bird, it has to be this way--because."

>> "Because?"

> "Just... because"

Goodness those hit me hard.

Because natural selection doesn't optimize for longevity.

What you're saying is true, and it can be helpful to put things into logical terms like that.

But it's a messed up thing when you're a kid. You're thrust into the world, and some people around you make everything alright. Then one of those people leave, forever. As I'm sure many others can attest to, even as an adult, that frustration doesn't go away. I accept that it can be explained as deterioration of the cells, or maybe general entropy, but there's an emotional aspect to it nevertheless.

Somehow, it's comforting for me to remember that it happens "just because."

Humans are extraordinarily longevous. Natural selection doesn't optimize for immortality.

There are biologically immortal animals on earth, so it doesn't exactly optimize against it either.

Which begs the questions "why not?" and "why does natural selection get to say how long we live?".

My mother likes to tell the story of the first time I encountered a dead mouse:

"Why isn't he moving?"

--"Well, he's in the sky." (One way we say "in heaven" in my native language.)

"But he's right there."

--"Well, his soul is in the sky."

"..."

--"..."

"And why isn't his tail in the sky?"

Pardon my pushback, but wouldn't it be easier to just answer: the mouse has died. I know that's not religious and everyone has their own views on the soul, but: do we need to ease feelings about a dead mouse? I see the death of wild animals as good opportunities to teach children, so they're more prepared for the death of humans they know or their pets.

I think that's the point that GP is making -- they were contrasting a straightforward approach to their mother's more euphemistic explanation, which was unsatisfying to them as a child.

Like almost everything in parenting, it’s more complicated than you would first think. My toddler knows our elderly dog went to the doctor and died because she was sick. But when he asks ‘why’ I have to clarify that: she was sick but not the same way he gets a cold; that the doctor tries to make people feel better too; that she’s not dead in the way replaceable batteries die; and that her grandparents won’t die when they get a cold even though they also get sick.

I avoided the rookie mistake of telling him that the dog went ‘to sleep’ (because then he might worry that he’ll die if he goes to sleep too). But there were a dozen other considerations that I also had to make, up to the point of changing our wording when batteries or electronics ‘die’ from now on.

Do dogs not die in the way batteries do though? Surely we love dogs more than batteries, but both have a finite lifespan.

that's the standard advice when handling a pet's death. Don't try to sugarcoat it.

As someone who was a child that grew up watching him, I can assure you that he was extremely appreciated by his target audience.

Land of Make Believe crew checking in!!

Modern Daniel Tiger is a good message and all, but blatant. Fred had that subtlety that let you still find your path to your personal truth, like the best dad.

Newly minted granddad here. I’ve spent a couple hours with the kiddos playing and Daniel Tiger in the background. They watch sometimes. I agree with your sentiment. It seems nice and all, but somethings just meh about it compared to the old stuff.

I’m increasingly concerned about a world that has doers and deciders. Fred Rogers was able to be both. He had the skills to do. But he also had a lot of influence and was able to decide. So often anymore, there are a group of creative doers who are placed under the thumb of people less able to do who have promoted themselves as a whole to take care of the deciding, so that the doers, uh, er, uh, have more time to do.

Daniel Tiger feels like a well meaning kids show created in just such an environment.

In defense of Daniel Tiger, even if it can’t fully compete with Fred Rogers while trying to follow in his footsteps, it at least explores childhood feelings in a slow, deliberate & understandable way which is more than I can say for most shows for kids. Too much frenzied action in the realm of kids’ entertainment and Fred Rogers was complaining about that in testimony to Congress long before I was born!

We found in Bluey a lot of what we were looking for and expected in Daniel Tiger.

Especially the "talking to kids in a helpful way" aspect.

They're obviously not cut from the same template or are even necessarily trying to be the same thing.

The kids enjoy both, and both are great shows, but affecting learned/emulated behavior (for both the kids and us with better parenting) is much more apparent with Bluey.

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