Who’s to blame for America’s culture of narcissism? Our vanity-minded advertisers? Our media, obsessed with celebrity? Our elected officials, with their overdeveloped sense of entitlement? Our country’s centuries-old isolationist strain that discourages us from exploring the world beyond our front yard? Nope, it’s all the fault of Mr. Rogers (pictured).
So say the experts quoted in this Wall Street Journal article, laying the blame on the gentle children’s TV host (who, alas, is not available to respond) for instilling generations of kids with too much unwarranted self-esteem. ""He’s representative of a culture of excessive doting," says one such expert, a finance professor at Louisiana State University. Another pundit quoted is an anonymous yahoo posting on a Yahoo message board, saying, "Mr. Rogers spent years telling little creeps that he liked them justthe way they were. He should have been telling them there was a lot ofroom for improvement."
Sigh. Remember the good old days, when the cultural fulminators againstbad TV role models cited actual rebel figures — Bart Simpson,Murphy Brown, Tinky Winky? Now, not even someone as harmless as Mr.Rogers — an ordained minister who called each of us his special"neighbor" (as in, "Love thy…") — is safe from this sort ofrevisionist calumny. Let’s face it, there are some folks who considerall popular culture to be a bad influence, and some who will hijack anypop-cultural artifact, no matter how anodyne and free of ideology, anduse it to score vindictive, partisan points. Forget the culture ofnarcissism; where did this culture of mean-spiritedness come from?
I blame Oscar the Grouch.
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Not to be mean-spirited, but I never really cared for Mr. Rogers. For some reason, it always grossed me out that he changed his shoes at the start of each show. I don’t know why, I don’t have any major feet issues, but it did. Also I was afraid of his puppets, the ones that were people anyway. As far as that goes, I’m still very afraid of puppets….
OH! How sad that Mr. Rogers should be blamed for the current condition of the world. I grew up watching Mr. Rogers and I don’t blame anyone but myself for my shortcomings! We as a nation are so quick to place blame anywhere but where it belongs, WITH OURSELVES! Stand up and be accountable, people. Stop blaming the media, tv, failed public schools or whosoever is your chosen Bogey Man!
I watched Mr. Rogers as a child, and I have just introduced his show to my two year old daughter who absolutely loves him already. We watch it together, then we discuss what we’ve seen.
True, the show moves at a snail’s pace, but what made Mr. Rogers so wonderful is that he NEVER belittled his audience. He spoke to them as if they were adults, and made children feel good about themselves, regardless of color, race, religion, or handicap. He taught children about empathy, compassion, and tolerance.
If a child is acting like a “little creep,” then it’s the PARENT’S job to help their child. Not Mr. Rogers’. If anything, I’d say that the generation of “little creeps” grew up the way they did because their parents let them get away with too d*mn much!
Seriously? Blaming Mr. ROGERS? Okay, that takes the cake. This just proves that our culture is a culture of whiners, looking to pass the buck at any opportunity because they failed as parents and people. Never mind that we’re all human. All of our kids make mistakes. All parents make mistakes. Next thing you know, Mother Teresa will be getting the blame for the world’s ills.
Here, here Stacy! Growing up as an interracial child, it was hard for me to fit in with other children. Shows like Mr. Rogers made me feel like it’s all right for me to be who I am. But at the end of the day, your parents have to be the ones to regulate your behavior. If I got out of line, my mom handled that!
Perhaps we should look at the fact that kids today are getting all the latest gadgets, fanciest clothes and everything they could want without having to work for it. You’re going to be a “little creep” when that’s the mentality you’re being raised with.
So-called ‘experts’ such as these are sucking the life out of the tax payer and giving nothing in return.
They should be made to walk the plank.
Dear Popwatch, why bother reading papers like the WSJ and USA today when they write about popular culture? I don’t read the EW “Politics” Section (wait, you don’t have one, which is sorta my point).
WSJ giving discussions of the influence of popular culture in American life would be like former boxer Mohamed Ali giving expert testimony before Congress on the role of steroids in Pro football.
That said, Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street both have (had in the case of Mr. Rogers) positive messages for kids and are both fun and educational. Would the WSJ prefer the kids watch more of the Mattel/Nabisco Choco Robot action hour? Because I can’t think anything in most modern gonzo style cartoons have much to offer in terms of lessons. I’d argue that Pokemon (which taught kids about mass consumerism) was a worse influence than Mr. Rogers.
Sigh. The bozos at the WSJ need to go out and get a life. Blaming Mr. Rogers for Gen Y’s sense of entitlement is like blaming Ronald McDonald for Mad Cow. Fred Rogers was a kind soul who made kids feel good about themselves, no matter how strange, unusual, or ugly their world around them really was. The guy should be lauded as a saint, not demonized.
It really sounds like some snot-nosed WSJ writer didn’t get enough attention when he was a child…
Mr. Rogers is one of the good guys…If you need to blame someone for the behaviour of self-obsessed people, look no further than the parents who wont scold them in public, wont make them sit down and behave in restaurants and movie theatres, who allow them to run wild in the malls…Not all parents are like this, but we’ve all seen the ones who ignore their children in these settings…don’t be their ‘friends’, be their damn parents already…geez
I think all the mean-spiritedness came from Air Supply. All of those records really corrupted kids in the 80’s, and we’ve never been the same since.
Why do people malign gentle, decent beings?
These experts should be tied to the tracks while Trolly gives them a going over. Of course, the excellent Mr. Rogers would never have gone for it.
Sorry, I have to lay more blame on Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Moose.
We can’t place the blame on a single dude. For decades, our entire culture has been obsessed with the notion of ’self-esteem’. But there’s a problem, someone with too much self-esteem is a narcissist! Self-esteem is not an inherently good trait, but in school all we do is tell our kids how highly they must think of themselves.
If anything, we need to teach the opposite. Who’s got more self-esteem, the person who holds doors open for people? Or the person who double-parks?
I am deeply offended at this personal attack on our friend and neighbor, the esteemed Mr Rogers. He has never done anything but defend our community and I demand that we retaliate.
Bite your tongue, Wall Street Journal. Mr. Rogers was wonderful! I loved him as a kid; and I cried as an adult when he died. And then I cried again a few years later when the little girl I was babysitting for was watching his reruns. Love him.
Well said Donner. I am so sick of hearing parents bargaining with their children while their children scream at the top of their lungs. Leave Mr. Rogers be!
How absolutely absurd and ridiculous. When will the finger of blame finally rest on some of these parents or just humanity in general? They’re all so eager to find some scapegoat so that they don’t actually have to reflect upon themselves and admit that they might have made a mistake or two. Do they ever stop to think that it’s them, the parent, who is so self-absorbed that they’d rather let Mr. Rogers play father figure to their child instead of being there themselves?
Let Mr. Rogers rest in peace. He was a great man who had nothing, but love in his heart and he brought a lot of happiness to a lot of children.
I wish I could roll my eyes and say something snarky, but this makes me truly sad. Do we want to go back to times when kids were thought of as free farm labor? Homes were formal and rigid and cold? Yes, some bad things have come with our new model of the family, but there’s hugs and high-fives and dads who think of their kids as something other than a burden. If Mr. Rogers contributed to that, he should be applauded. Not for Lady Lane Fairchild though, she was creepy.
BOOO to you, Gary, for publicizing an idiotic article. Here’s what the Wall Street Journal article says, and I must point out, the person responsible for this discussion is not a child psychologist, a cultural expert, or a media professional. It’s a FINANCE PROFESSOR at a state university! Not really qualified to be the source of a Wall Street Journal article, so BOOOO to the WSJ and its hack research editor! (Ever heard of a PRIMARY SOURCE???)
“Don Chance, a finance professor at Louisiana State University, says it dawned on him last spring. The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A’s. ‘They felt so entitled,’ he recalls, ‘and it just hit me. We can blame Mr. Rogers.’”
I am a research editor for a magazine and I would be FIRED if I tried to publish sensationalistic, unfounded garbage like this.
Mr. Rogers demonstrated what it means to be kind. He showed us how to treat each other. He said that we were special, and we are. Special doesn’t mean that we had a right to act like a brat, but that we had something to offer the world. One problem now is the amount of negativity in this world (WSJ) and we miss a positive force such as Mr. Rogers.
“Don Chance, a finance professor at Louisiana State University, says it dawned on him last spring. The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A’s. ‘They felt so entitled,’ he recalls, ‘and it just hit me. We can blame Mr. Rogers.’”
Mr. Rogers is to blame for high self-esteem? WTF? If they want to blame someone, blame the parents for spoiling their kids in the first place, not a beloved children’s show host that at least taught you how to be a decent human being. Children’s shows these days are nothing more than 1/2-hour toy commercial. Don Chance and the writers of that article need to go “Boomerang-toomerang-zoomerang!”
The craziness of the blame-Mr.-Rogers angle is well covered here. I would just add that it’s equally stupid to latch on to the phenomenon of students fighting for extra points as an indicator of unbridled narcissism on their part. Fact is, it’s way, way, way harder to get into top ranked colleges and grad schools than it ever was back in the day, which raises the stakes for every single point. Teachers in their 40s and older have no clue about that, or refuse to accept it. Plus, there are teachers who are just genuine pricks!
P.S. I graduated from college ten years ago.
This is what we have to complain about in America. We have so much food that we’re all getting sick with type 2 diabetes and heart disease, and we have so many people saying nice things to our children that they grow up having self-esteem that is too high.
Surely we have other problems our “experts” could work on.
Mr. Rogers told us we were fine the way we are not because we got straight A’s or went to top colleges. That we were due dignity and respect because we are people. If more people were happy with themselves as they were they wouldn’t be so focused on perfection, which is what the professor seems to be complaining about. The problem isn’t kids who think they are perfect. It’s kids who’s only sense of validation comes from outside sources. They are the ones fighting for every extra point and happy face. The Mr. Rogers fans know not to get worked up over the little things.
I think this is just the tip of the iceburg. Having grown up in Chicago, I am pretty sure watching Romper Room (with all the rompering going on!), Bozo the Clown, etc. has contributed to widespread evil upbringing as well.
Look to LSU, that bastion of supreme higher learning, to finally shed the light.
All this because some idiot finance teacher was annoyed that his students wanted to better their grades?? So he blames Mr. Rogers?! It’s a good thing this knucklehead doesn’t teach a course in logic, because his students would all start blaming Big Bird for the social and political ills in Iraq.
Sigh. Remember the good old days, when the cultural fulminators against bad TV role models cited actual rebel figures — Bart Simpson, Murphy Brown, Tinky Winky?
I seriously just laughed so hard out loud and hit the desk when I read that I think I might get fired.
To be a narcisist means to care only about yourself and not other people. Fred Rogers never encouraged that. If anything, Rogers was a cheerleader of self esteem especially for children of neglect and abuse. I work with “Latch Key” kids in an urban public library. I see these types of kids every single day. I am sorry, this professor really needs a konk over the head with a Nerf bat.
BTW: the funniest parody of Mr. Rogers was SCTV’s Battle of the PBS stars.
I blame the anti-capitalist propaganda that is “Mary Poppins.”
Just a thought, but does the Canadian equivalent of the WSJ blame “Mr. Dressup” for Canadian self-entitlement? Maybe “The Friendly Giant?”
Strange, I just blame him for unleashing meow meow cat on us…