Is There Still Time for the Mister Rogers Generation?

Is Gen X the Mister Rogers generation? Did a neighborhood fight the lie of consumerism with love? Do we still need to live his lessons? Can we be the helpers while being liked just the way we are? I hope so, because everything is on the line right now.

In a time where Saturday Morning cartoons were full of sophisticated ads marketing to children and the Boomers left us to our own devises to be feral latch key children, there was a kind calm in the storm. He did not want to sell us anything, he wanted nothing from us but wanted us to have kindness and acceptance. He gave us kindness, attention, encouragement, self expression, and we mattered.

Here is an example of how much each of us mattered. Fred Rogers once got a letter from a little girl who was blind. She worried that his fish might be hungry. So in every episode he spoke about feeding the fish as he did it. We all got to hear his words, but he wanted to be sure she heard it. Every single one of us mattered.

In a 2019 Washington Post article we know that he was not nice, he was at war with consumerism for our lives. “It was a well-thought-out war against a culture that needed kids to feel inadequate to become good consumers.” His daily visitations in our living rooms was a battle and his weapon was love. It was a gift spawned by anger and concern. He was a difficult man to work with because he was singular in his vision and would not compromise that belief in us.

Fred Rogers was in tune with us and understood our traumas and the voices that were out to manipulate us for fiscal gain.

And while he was speaking to us as children, he was also speaking to the adults. We are the adults now. But when we met him we were the feral latch key children who sat in a living room by ourselves. For some of us he was the only voice that spoke kindness and he knew that. For others it was further support and affirmation for what they were getting at home. He knew that as well. He masterfully made sure we all got the messages without special effects and hyperbole.

Gen X is the Mister Rogers Generation. We were his and he loved us and wanted a better world for us. But he also gave us a mission and maybe we need not only the reminders that we matter, but the reminders to be the helpers the children of today need.

So put on your sneakers, zip up your cardigan, and prepare to be the subject of this week’s Sunday Showcase.

“There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.”

It was 1974 when I first heard this and I believed him at the time. It took me 50 years to believe that people should like me just the way I am. People should like you just the way you are. Readers and Gen X Watch Community, there really is no person in the whole world like you. And I do like you just the way you are and I am so glad that you are here.

“You are special. You’re special to me. There’s only one you in this wonderful world.”

Again. Heard this first in 1974 and continued to hear it in my childhood. 50 years later that message has not sunk in all the way. How about you? I hope it does for all of us because it is true. And to everyone reading this, you are special to me. Like Mister Rogers, I mean it.

“When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.”

Now we get to a lesson I started living in 2019. I promise you that he was right when he brought the neighborhood into our living room and told us this. Talk about your feelings. Scream them out, stomp your feet, and never stop talking about them. It is the lesson I live best that he gave us and I love him for this truth that has literally saved my life.

“I’m proud of you for the times you came in second, or third, or fourth, but what you did was the best you had ever done.”

In a world where toxic positivity tells us how to win and be the best and seize the day and win every moment, we need this lesson now more than ever before. The Andrew Tates of the world and his Alpha brethren and the Mommy Bloggers and so many other voices tell us to win and be the strongest, most organized, and most successful if we want to matter.

All we can do is all we can do and that may not be the best in class, but it is the best we can do. Sometimes, it is a little better than last time. So many of us feel shame for not being more successful, more fit, and so many other mores. Our best is enough and it has to be. It is what makes us us and there is no one else like us and I love us all exactly as we are.

Mister Rogers did not just speak to the children. He also spoke to the adults. That is us. He told children when things on the news were upsetting, to look for the helpers. The helpers are always there. The news is very upsetting right now and I still need helpers, but I also need to be mindful that we are the helpers the younger voices need when the world gets scary.

“How sad it is that we give up on people who are just like us.”

I think we all know what it feels like for others to give up on you and we give up on others. Others who are just like us. When we do that, we also give up on ourselves.

“You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.”

I am going to be 54 in a few months. I know that I have more days behind me than ahead of me. There are so many things I want to do that I have not done in this life. But I am not going to be able to do all the things. I can only do some of them. This is true for all of us. So with time as a non renewable resource in this short life, we have to choose. And to make those choices best we have to have a sense of who we are and what matters most.

Due to a lack of self awareness there were decades lost that I can never get back. All I have is now. Now is precious and in limited supply for me. What about you? How will you spend the time you have and which of the things do you wish to do most?

You reading my words today and in every article I write? That is a choice for now that gives me great joy, spending time with you sharing my thoughts via Op/Ed Gonzo Journalism hoping for your words in response.

“Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing.”

Of them all, I feel this is the most poignant challenge. It is okay to have that time of solitude to reflect and delight in self. When do we embrace the sublime of solitude and not confuse it with the pain of loneliness?

“In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.”

For the readers who enjoy our Fem Fridays Series you know my struggle with the indoctrination of religion that made me a threat to women and queer people. How did I escape from Christianity? It was ultimately found in the questions. The questions were the answers that guided me out and I found others asking the same questions and we found our way while listening to one another with our ears and our hearts. We helped each other leave the shackles of toxic faith communities together. We did not have answers, just questions.

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of.”

When I first read this I thought of the day I tried to kill myself and came closer than I am comfortable with having succeeded. I did not feel I mattered to anyone and I was not only unimportant, I was a monster. We matter and most of us are unaware of how much we matter to ourselves and others. So how do we help others feel they matter more?

“It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.”

“Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.”

“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It’s an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”

And finally…

“Try your best to make goodness attractive. That’s one of the toughest assignments you’ll ever be given.”

As I see the end of this road before me in this finite adventure called life, I strive to be more like one of Mister Rogers’ neighbors. Sometimes I am and sometimes I am not. And that is okay as well. He had one other statement that reminds me that it is okay to not get it right all the time.

“Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we aren’t perfect.”

My anger can sometimes be vicious. In this life I’ve not always been honest. There are people I should have built up, but I tore them down because I did not love me and that sometimes made it harder to love others in the way I should have. In this life I let the lie of consumerism make me believe I was less and I dragged some people into that hell with me.

I am not perfect and I never will be. But I can get up and try again and get a little better. That is all any of us can do.

Here is 2 little example of how Mister Rogers inspired me in how I conduct matters at Gen X Watch.

Every comment on articles that I write get a reply from me personally. I don’t care if it is one comment or 20. I need to sit down and make sure every person who wrote something knows I read it, I appreciate them, and I am glad they are here and that they exist. And if there is something in there that expresses a hurt or a fear, that gets validated.

Do you remember that bit about Mister Rogers telling us all about him feeding the fish so one girl who was blind could know he was doing it? I recently read a letter to me from a woman who is blind asking me to write more about people with disabilities because not enough people in media write about it.

I did. After much research and 9 hours of writing our next article was what she asked for. She trusted me as a member of the media to write.

It is one of our least read articles to date. That is distressing. It is about a powerful and wonderful model who was deaf and even her own mother would not give her the proper support she needed.

The struggle to get her reasonable accommodations happened 2 years before the Americans With Disabilities Act was in place. I assure you this was not a story where “abled” people were the heroes to the helpless shrinking violet. She was a strong, and real, protagonist who worked her ass off and had friends with her as we all should when we face challenges.

I need her to know that I am going to keep feeding the fish and I will keep writing about the things that matter, the people who matter, and not shut up until more people read about the friends our neighborhood that matter. I love you all exactly the way you are, but I do wish you would check in on all our neighbors. Not a lot of our black neighbors who Jeremy and I write about get seen by many either.

You can honor my blind reader, the deaf model who I met when I was 18, and all our neighbors simply by reading and sharing that article and the subsequent articles I will continue writing.

Escaping Life Under the Shadow of Brooke Shields

I cringe when I see Gen X memes that celebrate us while throwing Millennials, Gen Z, and the new Gen Alpha under the bus. Mister Rogers was trying his damnedest to protect us from the predators of the Boomers and Silent Generation that did not have our best interests at heart. He dedicated his life to this mission and we were the Generation he did it for in the hopes we would continue this work.

In the articles we write we highlight the things that matter with kindness to the younger generations while being very clear in the things that threaten love. And I am grateful for all of you, but like me, we are all less than perfect.

I am more crass and less kind, I will own that. But I’m trying and get a little better every day. Will you join us? The neighborhood has fallen into disrepair since we lost Mister Rogers and we need to be the helpers.

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