On Fred Rogers

Book: The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers
Author: Maxwell King

1. Find something that you like and spend a life time developing expertise in it. This seems like a recipe for not just a happy life, but outsize returns. Fred Rogers knew early on, in college, that he liked children, and he liked music. He discovered television around this time and was hooked. For the rest of his life, this was his play area. This, and his Presbyterian faith, which he fused into his life’s work.
2. Fred Rogers, along with a few others like Dr V or Gandhi, are examples of people of faith just having a deeper, kinder, and a more positively impactful life. All of them practiced their religion, in the truest sense of the word. They grappled with integrating it in their daily work and social life. It informed their choices in the world. For Fred, it was treating everyone, from the little ones to the adults, with compassion and empathetic outreach.
3. Fred was bullied in school. That seems to have left its mark on him, about how children should be treated. Folks with outsize success in America seem to have had emotionally tough childhoods. See Larry Miller.
4. Once you have decided your field, have the highest standards. Fred was famous was not going home till he got wanted from each show, from all his performers. He was obsessed with quality, and he didn’t give a damn about the what the studio executives care about, which was advertisement. He stayed away from selling to children through his life, trading profits for excellence. His show integrated themes of kindness and self-acceptance and actively listening to the children, and the mid century American children responded back.
5. Despite being the person he was, both his children had rebellious adolescent years, including encounters with the police and drugs. Neither of them finished college. Mysterious are the ways of the world. Fred Rogers set an example for other children to emulate, including his own, but they took their time to get to it.
6. Speaking of being a role model, that seems to be one of the things you must be very mindful of. Children notice everything. Fred Rogers’ own faith and life was informed by his parents, for whom the term “pillars of the community” applied without qualification. Similar roles were played by Dr. Orr at Pittsburg Theological Seminary, and Dr. Margaret MacFarland. Dr V, was heavily influenced by Gandhi. Dr V’s siblings, who followed him into Aravind, in turn aspired to the standards set by him. What and how you do matters, so you must be an exemplar. Be what you want to see more of in the world.
   • Jim Rogers, Fred’s father, once wrote a large check to a waitress at a restaurant after she told him she was putting all her tips toward her college tuition, and he set aside a large contribution from his own stocks and bonds to create what he called the “sinking fund” to meet the unanticipated needs of the Latrobe Presbyterian Church.
   • More than once, Rogers saw Dr. Orr leave for lunch on a winter’s day and come back without his overcoat, having given it to someone he encountered living on the street. Orr told Rogers not to worry: He had other coats back home. With everyone at the seminary, students and faculty alike, Orr was willing to give freely of his time, his books, his money, or anything that was needed. Rogers found Orr, with his emphasis on kindness and caring and his deep belief in forgiveness, to be an example of how to live.
7. It’s good to have friends, and friends in high places. Fred Rogers could take some of the risks because he came from wealth, and his father had wealthy friends. This opened some doors. Once you work, and do it honestly and thoroughly, your reputation will speak for itself, and more doors open.
8. In the end, how do you measure impact? Despite Fred Rogers’ efforts, television and movies are entirely motivated by profit and commercials today. By the time he finished his television career in 2001, around half the marriages in America ended in divorce. Just a few years later, the US passed another watershed: Over 40 percent of babies were being born out of wedlock; and for women in their twenties—a harbinger of future trends—the percentage of babies born outside of marriage was 60 percent. This was not the values he stood for, but here America is.
   • Despite the trend of the day - about which you can do little - you must still live out your values. Most people will not care and the world will unfold the way it will, but some people’s lives could change by your example and words.
9. On parenting, and children:
   • “Nothing can replace the influence of unconditional love in the life of a child. . . . Children love to belong, they long to belong.”
   • Fred McFeely always made sure his grandson knew, directly and sincerely, how much he enjoyed his company. “Freddy, you make my day very special,” McFeely frequently told the shy little boy, reminding him of his importance to the adults in his life.
   • Dr. Margaret MacFarland said that attitudes aren’t taught, they’re caught. If the teacher has an attitude of enthusiasm for the subject, the student catches that whether the student is in second grade or is in graduate school. She said that if you show them what you love, they’ll get it and they’ll want to get it.”