Here we go again. A new crop of smug articles about how participation trophies are creating a generation of entitled brats.
Can we step off the ledge and be honest for a second? You and I both know that a participation trophy isn’t making kids believe that they won something other than…a participation trophy.
Kids aren’t dumb – they know who won and who lost even when you don’t keep score. They can tell you who is the fastest, who is the smartest, who is the best – even if they do so grudgingly.
No. That trophy is about celebrating the willingness to be a part of something. What we should be instilling in our kids is not a desire to win little league but the courage to try new things.
Only one in a million will grow up to be a professional athelete. But that other 999,999 are tomorrow’s doctors, scientists, coders, politicians, teachers. Jobs where having the courage to try something new – to try and fail and try again – will be the difference between stagnation and progress.
I think the kids have it right. How many times have you sat at your desk and wished to be little again? To be unburdened by the things you know. To chase a bubble through the backyard. To go to bed on Christmas Eve and believe that a man in a red suit is coming down your chimney. To feel proud and complete that someone recognized that your participation was worth a piece of plastic and a hug.
I’ll tell you. I think about it every day.
I struggle with how to raise my children to be good people. I struggle with how to adjust to a world without my dad. I struggle every day with how to be a better person myself. I struggle with the laundry.
And you know what I’d like some days? A bloody participation trophy. It won’t bring my dad back. It won’t make me think I don’t have to pay my bills. And it won’t make me feel like I’m entitled to anything other than a recognition that someone, somewhere thinks I’m trying really hard.
Because some days, my friends, that is winning.
#LoveHard
#TryHarder
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