Notes on A Genius of Empathy via Finding Fred
Credit: iHeartRADIO
When I listened to it: November 2019
Why I listened to it: I stumbled across this podcast when I was researching empathy for this article: Clarifying empathy as skill so we can use it. Fred Rogers was a master of feelings and empathy. I don’t remember watching Mister Rogers Neighborhood much as a child. But I do remember a few vivid moments in 1st and 2nd grade when I was exposed to the show at elementary school. As an adult, the way he approached complex emotional topics with simple language amazes me.
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My notes
There is an explosion of Mister Rogers nostalgia right now.
This is episode one of a 10-part series about the life, thinking, and work of Fred Rogers.
Host = Carvell Wallace, a bestselling author and cultural critic
What does a good person look like? ⇒ Fred Rogers.
Mr. Rogers made it ok to be comfortable with and to talk about your feelings (this is what Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was all about, which ran for three decades).
Comfort with your feelings is not easy. It takes work.
Mr. Rogers created a template for how to recognize your feelings and understand them ⇒ which is how you grow.
Ashley C Ford [guest] thinks deeply about how people feel.
She’s a writer of essays, articles, and a memoir
She’s a Fred Rogers enthusiast and finds help from Mr. Rogers as an adult ⇒ he was talking about stuff she was interested in
Mr. Rogers was a genius at empathy.
Empathy = being so closely identified with another person that we can understand their feelings.
Empathy is really hard AND getting people to understand empathy is hard ⇒ because most people don't have empathy for themselves.
If you're not comfortable with your own feelings, you can’t really be comfortable with another’s feelings.
The first episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood aired in 1968 ⇒ famous song on this episode: “I like you as you are…”
When Bobby Kennedy was shot, Mr. Rogers asked for a primetime special because he wanted to help children understand how the assassination might impact their parents feelings (even though they may be too young to have their own feelings directly about Kennedy) ⇒ “What does assassination mean” came out of a puppet’s mouth on the show.
Mr. Rogers invented a neighborhood where people get together to talk about the things that confuse them or scare them ⇒ their feelings.
Human nature is complex ⇒ One individual can be one person's hero and another person's worst nightmare.
We all want to be good, but when we see other people acting “bad” we often get mad ⇒ anger.
Fred Rogers covered anger ⇒ He wrote a song about it: “What do you do with the mad that you feel…”, which he recited in front of Senate committee hearing in 1969.
Fred cared about mental health ⇒ If we can “make it clear that feelings are mentionable, we will have done a great service for mental health.”
Ashley: Every emotion is just trying to tell you something ⇒ when you’re angry, maybe it’s trying to tell you what you care about.
Over ~900 episodes, Fred Rogers talked about feelings using simple language children could understand.
Mister Rogers Neighborhood was not a simple show ⇒ it is a roadmap to our feelings ⇒ a guide to how we can be better neighbors.