If you are like most Generation X or Y parents, then you grew up loving Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Now that many of us have children of our own, we miss that kind, sweet, creative man more than ever. Because who in today's world is like Fred Rogers?

When he died, he left a hole in our hearts. While the PBS Digital remix called "Garden of Your Mind" featuring a long auto-tuned homage to imagination is beautiful and may induce chills, it may also make you sad.

There is just not television for kids (or even adults) that even compares to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. See below:

Mister Rogers is so right. It's good to be curious. It's good to be different. It's a simple message, but much deeper coming to us this way.

He asks if we grow things in the garden of our minds. It's a particularly poignant message coming to use from the 1970s. Now our kids (and all of us) are so busy texting and web surfing and playing video games that we don't spend nearly enough time tending the "garden" of our minds.

It's a good lesson from our past and who better to bring that than Mister Rogers? We need a new Mister Rogers, someone who is kind and gentle and good with children, who teaches good values and patience.

Do we have a single celebrity today who is as moving as Mister Rogers? I would give anything to be in that simple time or have a show my kids could watch that would be as enriching as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Apparently we knew better 30 years ago than we do now.

Did this make you sad?

 

Image via PBSdigitalstudios/YouTube