How Mr. Rogers Helped Me Survive the Pandemic
The best piece of parenting advice I ever got. (Guest Post)
A guest post by Sally Nicholls
It was Christmas 2020, a date which still sends a shiver of reflexive horror through British people everywhere. Omicron was making its presence known. Boris Johnson, who’d relaxed COVID restrictions for the festivities, promised not to cancel Christmas then immediately cancelled Christmas. He promised not to close schools in January, then – I kid you not – opened schools for one day, then closed them again. The next lockdown was very clearly weeks, if not days away. The country was collectively braced for impact.
Like half the United Kingdom, my Christmas looked different than planned. In our case, we’d already decided not to spend it with relatives when my mother fell and broke her leg. She was rushed into hospital for an operation and bundled out the same day in the worst pain of her life. My brother hurried down from Glasgow to take care of her. And, on December 27th, I came up to replace him.
That first night, I suggested we watch one of her Christmas presents, the Tom Hanks biopic of Mr Rogers, It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood. I’m British, so I’ve never seen Mr Rogers’ Neighbourhood, but I’d read the essay the film is inspired by and it seemed like something my mum would appreciate.
Watching the film however, I felt more and more depressed.
In March 2020, I had a one-year-old and a four-year-old. I lived in a two-up-two-down ex-council house, which was about the right size for a married couple with no kids. It just about worked because my husband and both kids were out of the house all day. And then they weren’t.
In many ways, I was lucky. Both my husband and I were able to work from home. I’m freelance, and my husband’s bosses were understanding. He immediately suggested we split the childcare fifty/fifty, which we did. In England, children start school at four, which meant my eldest’s teachers sent us a handy booklet of activities to do every week. I had a garden. It was sunny. I was locked down with the three people I loved most in the world. It could have been a lot worse.
It could also have been a hell of a lot easier.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to meet a deadline, keep a house running, educate a four-year-old and entertain a toddler at the same time? In a tiny house, where the only real play spaces are the kitchen and the garden? Where the TV is in the same room as your husband’s computer? While every think-piece you read is talking about the permanent psychic damage this is doing to your growing children’s brains?
Well, yes, probably quite a few of you have, because you are reading a parenting website in 2026. It was not fun. There were a lot of tears. A lot of boredom. A crippling sense of responsibility and a constant awareness that I was failing somebody, somewhere, no matter what I was doing. Homeschool involved a lot more Numberblocks, Octonauts and Maddy’s Do You Know? than was probably ideal. (Maddy Moate was just so much better at homeschooling than we were.) Our house got increasingly grubby. The floors were permanently strewn with toys.
I have one abiding, shameful memory of this time. I am doing copy edits in my bed, with the door shut. My husband is on duty. He’s on the toilet. The children are sitting on the stairs, wailing, for reasons I can’t remember. “I’ll be out in a minute!” my husband calls. I bend my head over my copy edits. I don’t go to them, because I am not on duty, and the only way this works is if they can’t knock on my door every time they want something.
Mr Rogers would never.
Mr Rogers spends most of Mr Rogers’ Neighbourhood being as close to perfect as a human can be. He exercises every day. Maintains the same weight his entire life, so as not to disappoint children by looking different. Replies to every letter children send him. He talks about how important it is to be emotionally honest with children, to discuss their feelings clearly and respectfully. Mr Rogers never shouts “Can you just stop touching me?” to his toddler. Mr Rogers never sends his kids to the garden and locks the door, just to get ten minutes peace.
And, okay, I’m exaggerating for effect. Lockdown was fine. We were fine. We bought a paddling pool and a slip and slide, and went for walks in the woods. (My four-year-old saw bluebells for the first time and said ‘I thought they would jingle’.) We read a lot of stories. They turned cardboard boxes into aeroplanes. We played Forbidden Island with the four-year-old while his brother napped, every single day for three months straight. They were both sad when school and nursery opened again in June. I am not actually a terrible mother. I’m just an introvert with deadlines and a messy house. I do know this.
But being a parent of young children can feel like constantly being reminded of all the contradictory things you’re supposed to do. Give them freedom to explore and make mistakes, but don’t actually let them make any mistakes or you’re a neglectful parent. Give them homecooked dinners, but also spend time playing with them and don’t turn on the TV. Work so you’re not reliant on the state, but also be present in their childhoods instead of dumping them in childcare. Make sure they learn to swim, do sports, have a hobby, learn an instrument, but also do their homework and don’t over-schedule them. And make sure you have a life of your own.
Watching Mr Rogers sing wise songs about managing your emotions felt like more of the same pressure. Yes, of course, children should be allowed to feel angry and sad. But could they not do it all the time, in a tiny house, when my copy edits were due last month?
Then, halfway through the film, Mr Rogers says it. He’s talking to the journalist who’s profiling him, and who has recently become a father. “Every child needs to know that someone likes them just the way they are,” he says. And I was flooded with relief.
Because this… this I could do. This was easy. I didn’t always like my kids, especially when they were toddlers, but I love the people they are. I love how different they are from each other. And from me. Isn’t that the fun of having children? All the interesting, unexpected places they take you? My kids are ten and seven now, and they’ve taken me to Geek Retreats, Climbing Hangers, football pitches and board game conventions. (All that Forbidden Island was a sign of things to come.) I have a kid whose favourite lesson is PE and gets invited to more birthday parties in a year than I do in a decade. How unexpected and brilliant is that? Another who can tell you everything you want to know about the space programme. I have no interest whatsoever in astronautical engineering, but I don’t care. I love that he does.
My kids may not always eat vegetables. I’m embarrassed to admit how rarely I change their sheets. But they both know that I like them, exactly and precisely, as Mr Rogers sings. I want them to grow up to be the most complete versions of themselves that they can be. And isn’t that the most fundamental thing of all?
When I got home, I decided to try Mr Rogers’ wisdom out.
“I like you just the way you are,” I told them.
My now-two-year-old was uninterested. My five-year-old looked up briefly from his Brio.
“I like you just the way you are too, Mummy,” he told me, then bent his head back to his train tracks.
Without warning, I felt my eyes fill with tears.
How?
How had Mr Rogers known?
How had he known this was exactly what I needed to hear?
Sally Nicholls is the author of over twenty books for children and teens, including The Button Book, The Silent Stars Go By and Yours From the Tower. She lives in Liverpool, England, with her husband and two sons. You can follow her on Instagram and Bluesky.
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obviously not the point but the Omicron wave was during the 2021 holidays, not 2020