A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

In defense of Mr. Rogers

I was prepared to be appalled by tonight's 60 Minutes story about "The Millennials," that magical generation born between 1980 and 1995 who are going to throw such a monkey wrench into America's corporate culture we'll all be scrambling to provide in-cubicle Xbox 360s to keep them happy. These technologically savvy kids, after all, are the products of an America that gives trophies for participation and tells every child out there that they're winners, even when they haven't really won anything.

Bitch, bitch, bitch. I admit, there are drawbacks to being sandwiched between what I've been repeatedly told are the two most narcissistic generations in history, but I prefer to delude myself into thinking my sterling employment record will measure up favorably against that of some emo-haircut sporting, iPhone-jockeying, Heelys-wearing jagoff.

Anyway, The Wife and I are goofing on the whiny kids talking about how they're going to shake up America, when Morley Safer brings in Wall Street Journal columnist Jeff Zaslow, who went on to rehash his six-month old column laying the blame for this generation's narcissism at the feet of Mr. Rogers:

Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were "special" just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.

Now Mr. Rogers, like Dr. Spock before him, has been targeted for re-evaluation. And he's not the only one. As educators and researchers struggle to define the new parameters of parenting, circa 2007, some are revisiting the language of child ego-boosting. What are the downsides of telling kids they're special? Is it a mistake to have children call us by our first names? When we focus all conversations on our children's lives, are we denying them the insights found when adults talk about adult things?

Some are calling for a recalibration of the mind-sets and catch-phrases that have taken hold in recent decades. Among the expressions now being challenged:

"You're special." On the Yahoo Answers Web site, a discussion thread about Mr. Rogers begins with this posting: "Mr. Rogers spent years telling little creeps that he liked them just the way they were. He should have been telling them there was a lot of room for improvement. ... Nice as he was, and as good as his intentions may have been, he did a disservice."

Zaslow and his cronies are - not to put too fine a point on it - fucking idiots. Fred Rogers no more spent years telling "little creeps that he liked them just the way they were" than he did exhorting them to mass suicide. No, Mr. Rogers made a living by telling kids who didn't hear it anywhere else that they meant something. That's all. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood first aired in 1968, well before the embarkation point of the entitlement generation, and his mission was never to empower the unworthy, but to make everyone, no matter who they were, feel good about themselves for 30 minutes a day. What a crime.

I'm as guilty as anybody of making fun of the guy when I was younger, but then, I wasn't one of those kids who actually needed something in their life called a "Neighborhood of Make-Believe."

Signs of narcissism among college students have been rising for 25 years, according to a recent study led by a San Diego State University psychologist. Obviously, Mr. Rogers alone can't be blamed for this. But as Prof. Chance sees it, "he's representative of a culture of excessive doting."

Prof. Chance teaches many Asian-born students, and says they accept whatever grade they're given; they see B's and C's as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately. They didn't grow up with Mr. Rogers or anyone else telling them they were born special.

Come on. I don't know any kid born post-1980 who paid attention to Fred Rogers. Hell, my sister was born in the 70s and she never watched an episode (she was a big Dukes of Hazzard fan, however). He's an easy target for piling on because 1) he's dead, and 2) even if he was alive, he wasn't the kind of guy who'd get involved in a public media imbroglio. All Rogers is to these old assholes is the latest in a series of scapegoats for the newest generation they're unable to understand. Are "the Millennials" annoying twats? Sure, but as with anything else, the parents are perfectly content to assign blame anywhere but themselves. Is your 20-something child a self-entitled douchebag who's never punched a clock in his life yet expects $60K starting salary and his own office straight out of college? Must be Mr. Rogers' fault.

The only surprising part of the 60 Minutes story was that career whiner Andy Rooney didn't show up to complain as well.