Those iconic sweaters Fred Rogers wore on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood were hand-knitted by his mother, Nancy McFeely Rogers Flagg. She knitted Fred a new cardigan each year for over 60 years!*
As a fourteen year old girl, Nancy knitted sweaters for American soldiers serving in World War I, then just kept knitting over her lifetime, wrapping many people in lovingkindness.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 13, 1981
Speaking of wrapping up, I'm finishing a series of six blog posts on The Quiet Ego, a construct developed by psychologists Heidi Wayment and Jack Bauer. It seems fitting to end with Fred Rogers, the Presbyterian minister who turned his attention to children's television as a way of touching a hurting world. Since his death in 2003, several movies and books have described the man behind the show, consistently identifying Rogers as a man of quiet humility, gentleness, and uncommon civility.
It seems equally important to identify his mother, Nancy, as one who passed this legacy of kindness to her son. I understand this because if I have any kindness in my bones much of it comes from my mother, Donna Mae Anderson. Like Rogers, I suffered from colic as a baby. Both of our mothers made great sacrifices to hold us in comfort and kindness. And now I'll stop comparing myself to Fred Rogers, because I'm not in his league when it comes to virtue or living with a quiet ego.
Rogers said, "The world is not always a kind place." This seems increasingly undeniable, but even in unkind times we find people who exude grace in the face of adversity. These are people with quiet egos, having learned to detach from the immediacy of the moment, embody compassion, recognize the profound interdependency we all share, and grow in response to the difficult challenges life serves up.
A typical story about Fred’s giving nature comes from a woman who once worked as an intern on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. She recalled that when she accompanied Fred on a trip to Boston, they were scheduled to have dinner at the home of an influential executive at WGBH, the public television station in Boston. A limousine had been hired to take them to the executive’s home. When they got there, the limo driver asked Fred when he should pick them up after dinner. Instead, Fred invited him in, to the bewilderment of the hostess. After dinner, he sat up front in the limo with the driver, a man named Billy, to get to know him. Before the evening was over, Fred and the intern went back to Billy’s house in West Roxbury to meet his parents. Fred came in and played the piano as people streamed in from around the neighborhood to listen. A few years later, when Fred learned that Billy was in the hospital dying, he called to talk with him and to say good-bye (King, p. 38).
Rogers drove a used Honda, dressed simply, and lived in a modest home. He set up a non-profit for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in 1971 but ran into some legal peril because his salary was too low for existing tax laws. He turned down network television offers that would have brought him fame and fortune.
His mother, Nancy, delivered medical supplies to a local hospital during an influenza epidemic, served on boards of organizations helping children, volunteered at the hospital nursery, and always had her eyes open for someone in the community who might need help. An athlete with hopes of going to medical school as a young woman, she settled into a life of little notoriety but substantial goodness.
The delivery man in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood was named Mr. McFeely, Nancy's surname prior to marrying Jim Rogers.
It has me wondering, what do I deliver in my various memberships and neighborhoods? Is it characterized by divisiveness, fear, and anger? Or something slower, kinder, and quieter?
A quiet ego is about contentment more than grasping, generosity more than consuming, gratitude more than envy, empathy more than anger, community more than isolation.
So here's to being quiet helpers. Shh... be still, my ego.
*Much of the information in this blog post comes from King, M. (2018). The good neighbor: The life and work of Fred Rogers. New York: Abrams Press.
Previous Posts in this Series:
Note: This blog is not monetized, and I never anticipate it to be. My hope is just to bring a bit of positive psychology to one small corner of the world. Ha! As if the world has corners...
