Yes, I did say it. The downfall of our society. I don’t mince words. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. And you don’t have to agree with me. I’m ok with that. We can be adults and agree to disagree. But, just for a moment, I want you to open your mind and hear my side of it. And if I can change your mind, great. If I can’t, we can still be friends (not really, but felt like I had to say that!).
Participation trophies — so you get an award just for showing up. (Slow clap). What is that actually teaching our children? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Do adults get an award just for showing up for work? NOPE. That simply doesn’t happen. Ever.
That is, in a sense, telling children that all they have to do, is show up. Now, I don’t know where you work, but if that is all I did in my job, I’m pretty darn sure no one would give me anything for that. I don’t think we should be rewarding children for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. That they get kudos for having a heartbeat. I feel like this is also setting them up for a huge disappointment when they enter the “real world” and no one is standing there applauding them just for showing up. And on the outside, it would seem like giving them participation trophies is building their self-esteem when, in my opinion, it is not. It is telling them that there is really nothing special about them. That everyone is the same. Well, folks, I hate to tell you, but everyone is not the same.
My pastor gave the most incredible sermon one time about everyone being the same. He said if we were jungle animals, we’d all want to be the lion, right? King of the jungle. But here’s the thing, he went on, if we were all lions, at some point we would fail to exist as living things. We need zebras, antelope, and other animals to prey in order for the lion to exist.
So, no. We can’t all be the same.
My husband asked me while on a walk, “Well don’t you think it is disheartening for a child to see the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners and they get nothing?” My face beet red and burning, “No. And I’m sorry for those children. But someone has to be the “loser” in order for there to be the winner.”
I recall a while back when my son was competing in gymnastics. The USAG (United States Association of Gymnastics) “medaled” out to ½ of the participants in that age category. That year, there happened to be 44 boys in my son’s age group. While he performed well in all of the other events, he did not have a great pommel routine and got a 22nd place medal. 22nd. I told my son that he can keep his little medal, but that we did not recognize that as a true placement. Podium. You have to podium in order for it to count.
Now, before you send me hate mail, I have a point I was trying to teach him. (But please send me hate mail, I heard once that if you have haters, you’ve made it!). I asked him to tell me who was the winner of the men’s all-around gymnastics in the last Olympics (which happened to be six months ago). He couldn’t remember. 2nd place in the Olympics? Nothing. 3rd place? Nope.
Ok, 22nd place? Nada. “Ok son, so you can’t even remember the winner let alone the 22nd place finisher.” I went on, what if Dad was 22nd place in his position in his company? What would he get? He’d get FIRED, that’s what he would get. There is no 22nd place in life.
Now, I’m not saying you either win or it doesn’t count. What I am saying, however, is that there is value in life to seeing the top three get a medal. It will do one of two things. It will either encourage you to fight and train harder. Or you will give up. As an athlete, I have been on the podium and I have been in 22nd place. On the podium, I thought what did I do that is repeatable to get me here again? And at 22nd place, I thought what do I need to improve so that I’m not here again. Or maybe I just didn’t perform my best on that day, at that time, and in that event. Like my Dad taught me so long ago, anybody can win on any given day. And while it was upsetting, at least temporarily, it taught me to look at each experience as to what I can learn from it. I learned quickly that 22nd place sucks. God, it sucks.
So, participation trophies suck. It doesn’t allow our children to feel disappointment and learn how to deal with it. They simply don’t know how to navigate through disappointment and failure. We need to allow them to feel all the feels when they are young and teach them and show them how to navigate through it. And I guess I was lucky to have the parents I had. They taught me that losing is ok. That there is a lesson in losing. That I could learn from it. And that they still loved me no matter what place I got.
Look, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but there are winners and non-winners in life. I intentionally avoided the word “loser” in the last sentence. Just because you lost the race, doesn’t make you a loser. That isn’t true. It just means you have to train harder, smarter or longer.
But just like winners and non-winners, you can’t have lions without prey. So control what you have control over. Train, study and practice and always shoot for being the lion. And don’t forget, the lion doesn’t give a crap what the zebra thinks of him. He’s a fucking lion. Rawr!
