Tracy Morgan on the Importance of Teaching Children Empathy The Drew Barrymore Show

All right, everybody, we are back and ready to dive into more of our favorite moments of this amazing, fun show that we get to live in. And sometimes there's just so much we get into, and so we have fresh content for you that's never before been seen. And Tracy Morgan was here, and I had this conversation with him. We couldn't even get it all into the show, and it is meaty and delicious. It was so fantastic and outrageous and funny and there was so much there. You guys have such a great connection. Well, so is Tracy Morgan. I mean, he is all of those things. I just adore him. Let's look back at this never-before-seen moment when you two got into a really quite beautiful conversation about parenting. Check this out. More than a great education, I want my son and my daughter to be empathic. Yeah. Always know how to give back. That'll keep you humble. So we give out food in the community at least 10 times a year. I just fed 19,000 families with the donation. Then I turned around and donated more because I've been fortunate. I feel fortunate. Me and my family feel fortunate, and you have to give back. Can I ask how us parents could take our kids? What is one small step to just doing that? Well, first of all, parenting doesn't come with instructions. Take it one day at a time. Listen. You give them instructions. You show them how to give back. You show them how to say thank you. You show them how to be pleasant, and everything else will come. Okay. That gives me a lot of faith. There's no book. There's no book. You're doing a great job. I'm trying. Listen, listen. You see that little girl? If you could go back and talk to her, what would you say? Keep playing. You're doing fine. Whenever your kids do something great, don't go over the top with the smile. Just look at them and give them this in your eyes. That's interesting. Maggie Baird, who is Billie Eilish's mother, and Phineas, she and I have made friends over the years, and I ask her a lot of advice, and she said that too. Like, calm the praise. Don't overdo it. I overdo everything. You don't want to overpraise. That's how you create a narcissist. You don't want to overpraise. I know a few of those, Tracy. You want your children to earn it. Earn it. You bring me something, and I'll give you the world. You bring me some good grades, I'll give you the world. I don't mind. You want them to earn it. Can I ask what kind of kid you were? Oh, wow. Let me tell you something. I come from the projects in Brooklyn. That's where I'm from. Two things you can't control in life, who you're born to and where you're born at. You ain't got nothing to do with that. It's all God. I was born in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, right across the street from Jay-Z and Biggie Smalls, and we grew up, and it was tough. But my father fought in Vietnam. He died of AIDS in 87. He fought in Vietnam, and he was the guy that taught me, him and my mom, you earn it. You earn it, and that's what I brought to my adult life. I earned it. I worked very hard. Matter of fact, I don't even work hard. I work smart. How does one work smart, may I ask? Let the young people work hard. You work smart. You've done it already. You did it. You've done it. You're here now. Listen, let me tell you something. If I knew then what I know now, I would rule the world. I just didn't have the capacity. I have it now. Now I know. I don't know as much as my grandfather, but I know a little something now. I know a little something now. I feel like the show that you're making, Crutch, which I've been watching, feels in keeping with what you're saying. For me, deep down inside, I wanted everyone in the household to put the phones down for a minute, and let's watch good old-fashioned TV like we used to. When Archie Bunker came on, Good Times came on, Sam for the Sun came on, there was always somebody in the house go, it's on. Everybody came running. The grandkids laid across the floor. Grandpa was in his lazy boy. Mom and Dad was over there hugging. Then after the show went off, there was a conversation. Might have been an argument, but there was a conversation. TV shows back then, there was a to-be-continued. You had to wait. My comfort show at night, every night when I'm going to sleep, I put the honeymooners on. I put the honeymooners on. I put it all on. I go to sleep. We watched that show constantly. It was a long-running show, simply because Ralph said, baby, you're the greatest. That made you want to watch it again. I learned. I learned from Laura Michaels. I learned from Tina Fey. You're working again with Tina. We're not a team. We're a family. Yes. By the way, I agree. I always say the thing that ET taught me, because I had a single mom. She was working at night. I worked during the day. We just had such an unorthodox life. Me too. Me and your life went parallel. Single parent mom. We're both different from different places. The parallel experience can be ... When I found ET, I was like, oh, you can make families. Yeah. Because you know how many uncles you had on that set? A lot. All the men were your uncle. Yeah. All the women were your aunt. Yeah. It was the most vibrant place. It wanted you to be a family. That's how Steven treated everybody. It taught me for the rest of my life how work could be conducted, that that dream was real, and you could create it. All of us here, we've been together six years. We launched in a global pandemic, and we are a family. It's like that all the way from the EPs to craft services. That's right. Everybody's a part of this. Everyone. It falls apart without every single human, period. Teams, roles, family. You can't pick and choose your family. They're your family. That's right. We have a softball team. Yeah. We do. Absolutely. We do. That goes way back. It goes way back. Softball teams, everybody's doing things together. It makes for good TV. Gosh, Tracy and I could have just talked all day. I think we pretty much did, which is why we have all this fresh content. We're going to show you more right after the break.