A couple generations ago, someone lied to parents. They were told that it was their duty to build their child’s self-esteem. The next day, parents demanded a trophy, lest their kid feel badly about the fact that they didn’t come in first place.
This solved two problems at the same time, the first having to do with the parents’ desire to produce exceptional offspring. The second was the desire not to see their child less than confident in their abilities, even if their abilities were inadequate. What dad wanted his son to suck at baseball? What son wants to be the kid all the good players laughed at?
Unfortunately, this was an inherently flawed plan of action, as the kid still sucked at baseball and all the other dads and kids realized it. And dad wasn’t able to shake off the realization that he produced a baseball dud. But there was a bigger problem. Instead of figuring out what junior did well, where his strength might be, where he could develop into an endeavor that would prove successful, dad and the sensitive coach, who went along with dad’s demands to avoid having to deal with his furious whining about how the other kids were bullying his baseball dud son, gave the kid a trophy. A participation trophy. A trophy to instill self-esteem and shut dad up.
The notion was that it was encouragement. It was nothing of the sort. If dad wanted his baseball dud son to actually achieve something, what the dud needed was encouragement to work harder. The alternative was to find something else to do, something at which he might excel. Or maybe, just maybe, he would be one of the middle-of-the-pack kids who would never excel at anything. We may all be created equal, but after that it’s up to us.
What the participation trophy created wasn’t just self-esteem, but unwarranted self-esteem. And now that kids have taken off their little league uniforms and donned the trappings of young adulthood, they have applied their unwarranted self-esteem to education, to their work life, to their world.
Every voice deserves to be valued and respected.
This is the mantra uttered by college presidents who have to say something to keep the little shits paying tuition. It’s a lie. Some voices say smart things. Some voices say stupid things. Most say whatever they feel like, as they’ve been told their feelings matter. And if they feel something and say something, they expect the world to act upon it, fix it. They are entitled to a world that gives them a participation trophy.
This is where the unwarranted self-esteem of the unworthy starts, and it ultimately reaches campus protests and office demands for an environment that caters to the individual whims of every sensitive youngster. The parents may believe that their little darling deserves to be the center of the universe, or they may have thought the kids would realize as they matured that they would grow up eventually and realize their shit, like their opinions, did indeed stink. Either way, the lesson never quite made its way into the kids’ heads.*
It’s fall, a new school year, and so the New York Times Room for Debate has raised the hoary old question of participation trophies. The phrasing of the headline is telling:
Should Every Young Athlete Get a Trophy?
Sit down. I have something to tell you and it’s going to make you sad. Not every youngster who plays sports is an athlete. Few are. Most are just players, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Sports are healthy and offer good lessons in teamwork and camaraderie, unless you screw up those lessons by eliminating the defining feature of sports: competition. If no one wins, then there is no purpose to the game.
Thus letting kids lose, or not take home the trophy, isn’t about embarrassing children. It’s about teaching them it can take a long time to get good at something, and that’s all right. Kids need to know they don’t have to win every time. It’s O.K. to lose, to make a mistake. (In a study of Gold Medal Olympians, they said a previous loss was key to their championships.)
It’s through failure and mistakes that we learn the most.
Losing pushes people to do better, or recognize that they won’t end up on the Yankees some day.
Some claim that constant awards improve children’s self-esteem, and, once kids have high self-esteem, they’ll achieve more. But scientists have tested these claims and found them to be false. Kids with already high self-esteem see the trophies as vindication they really are as wonderful as they see themselves. In a longitudinal study, when parents regularly overpraised their children’s performances, their children were more likely to be narcissistic two years later.
The defining characteristic of the Millennial generation is narcissism. Narcissism is the root of entitlement, that every young person is entitled to a world that caters to his feelings. This has become so embedded in their psyche that they are incapable of accepting the premise that their feelings don’t matter, their beliefs don’t matter, what they have to say doesn’t matter.
Except it does, at least to them and their fellow travelers, the enablers who share their beliefs in exchange for their support in return. By creating a supportive community of like-minded duds, they insulate themselves from the fact that they suck at sports, at thinking, at achieving. They call each other worthy people to pretend that they aren’t failures. After all, if you surround yourself with like-minded people who all agree that everyone, no matter what, is entitled, then there is no one to tell you that you didn’t make the cut. There is no cut to make.
Their enablers argue that there is no harm in acquiescing to the feelings of the little darlings. Why not just give them what they want? The answer is that there is no virtue to be gained in enabling narcissism and entitlement. There are life lessons that need to be taught in order to achieve success, and a trophy for participation teaches that there is no difference between success and failure.
We’re reaping what was sowed today in our world of angry, unhappy, unaccomplished, entitled, lazy, failed children, who still demand a tummy rub. And yet, we’re still talking about participation trophies.
*Not all kids. If you needed this said, you are definitely part of the problem.
I love how, in an attempt to be “balanced,” they get the opinion of a guy who manufactures trophies.
I’m occasionally asked by the editor of Room for Debate for a lawyer to take on a particular issue. She has a hard time finding good people to write on a day’s notice, which is why they use mindless advocates so often. But that may be the most obviously ridiculous choice ever.
Your thesis depends on the notion that children are easily fooled. They are not. They are very aware of how they stand compared to their classmates in any number of ways. They know who will ace the test, and who will fail. They know who will get a hit, and who will strike out.
That’s certainly true, which is what leads into my thesis, that the adult creation of unwarranted self-esteem to override the obvious as being false and unfair, that even the stupidest child is smart, that the most delicate deserves a world of tummy rubs, gives rise to the state of affairs we’re confronting today.
I wish I came up with this myself, but the wisdom was passed to me by a guys who coached little league 20 years ago.
A Mom comes to me and says that her precious snowflake wants to play 1st base or third base. Calmly I point to the two kids in the middle of the infield, “those boys are there because they are exceptional at fielding the ball and they know exactly what to do with it when it comes to them. If a play calls for a throw to 1st or 3rd, after they field it they are going to instinctively throw the ball as hard as they can at you son’s head. Right now I have no confidence he is capable of catching it, and for his safety I’d prefer to leave him in right field until he gets more confident with the glove, if you’d like I can give you a few drills that you can do at home to make him a better player”
MOM: Thank you (end of conversation)
Pretty sure no one spent even 5 minutes in the backyard with the kid.
There’s some new TV show about a girl who becomes a big league pitcher. I haven’t watched it, but I’ve seen the commercials. She practices hard, even when she doesn’t want to, to achieve excellence. I wonder what SJWs will make of the concept of hard work to achieve success.
Hard work is fine, but her success comes from being a woman that managed to get past all the male dominated aggression. She’s tearing down the walls preventing other girls from achieving what she did. Please, it has nothing to do with her skills.
Oh, sorry, did I say ‘girls’?
It’s great that she’s a woman accomplishing what no woman has ever accomplished before. As long as she’s good enough to do it. And if she is, that’s absolutely fabulous.
There is no “hard work is fine.” Without it, she can’t tear down squat. If we tear down “male dominated aggression” and force some MLB to take on some girl (I said it too, see?) to pitch slowball, it either gets hit over the fence every time or we put blinders on the batters to create the illusion of competitiveness. If it was just about equality, one side either reaches the point of excellence or the other side is limited to the point of mediocrity. Have you met my old friend, Harrison Bergeron? That’s what you get by ignoring hard work and focusing instead on the lie.
I thought you realized that I wasn’t being serious. I completely agree with you of course. SJWs will attribute success to breaking down social barriers and ignore the fact that it is mostly because of hard work.
Ah. Okay then. Protip: Sarcasm is hard to do, especially when others don’t really know who you are or what your perspective is. You’ve got 12 comments here. It’s not enough to know when you’re being sarcastic. Even long-time regulars don’t agree with me about everything.
I’m somewhat pragmatic about it. I look at every one of these kids as one less person my boys will have to compete with in the real world.
One downside is that their mother doesn’t like it when I express that view in polite company.
It’s funny that you say that. I was just having a discussion with Dr. SJ, who cringes at my vocalizing ideas she knows to be true, but seem harsh and unpleasant when spoken or written. I asked her what purpose is served by indulging in polite but pleasing lies, to which she responded, “but it makes you sound mean.”
It’s a mean world out there. Lying about it doesn’t make it less mean, just makes people who believe the lies less prepared to deal with them, or more prepared to try to drag everyone down to their level.
It’s not about competing. They’ll be constantly forced to work with incompetent, entitled co-workers. When your boys become the boss they’ll have an order of magnitude more difficulty with existing employees and finding quality new hires. This will be the cost of having a much easier path to success. I used to say with smugness that “my kids will be your kids’ bosses” in response to this stupidity, but I learned that you can’t avoid it.
From my perspective, this only holds “mostly true” if you’re aspiring for your children to have a career in the public sector or higher education.
Apologies you the illustrious judges that post here, the word “mostly” was intended to exclude you from my blanket statement.
Funny but appropriate aside to this. Bear with me, Im 5’6″ with flowing red hair (less now but mostly full coverage) and a red-headed step child (no offense to myself)
I say to people all the time. “I’m short and red, I had two choices: Mom’s basement or go balls to the wall and bust my ass
I took the latter and so far it’s turned out both satisfying and lucrative.
That’s what I try to instill in my boys, mostly over the protests of their mom who is convinced I’m being to hard on them
You’re on a smartphone, aren’t you? I’m 5’8″, but at least I’m not a ginger (sorry, couldn’t stop myself).
Yup…on a smartphone in the middle of Frankfurt Germany at an outdoor festival with live 80s music being played badly in a German accent.
As I said. I own the ginger thing. It’s worked out great. BTW everyone likes Harry better than his brother.
I love Germany. It’s been too long since I’ve been there. And I like Harry better, too.
10,000 hours. That’s the rule of thumb for becoming as competent as you can be (given natural talent and ability) at any given set of skills. Whether it takes 2 years, or twenty, is up to how important that task is for you.
The 10,000 hours is Gladwell’s lie about attaining expertise. It’s not a “rule of thumb.” You’ve been taken in by the lie.
Also the 5’6″ is on a “good day”
I hate the fact that comments by smartphones start new threads. I blame gingers.
Let’s try this the right way. Just hit the reply button instead of typing in the big, very inviting text box.
Let me.know if that worked.
I’ll be damned. It worked.
Once again a Ginger solving the world’s problems. It’s all about the reply button, damned that beautiful very tempting text box.
I notice you capitalize the “G” in ginger. The government demands that the “G” be capitalized in papers as well. Coincidence?
There’s no ‘g’ in ‘papers.’
Ok..two things.
1: it seems that the last comment in a post doesn’t give me the “reply option”. So that may be the cause of some.of your frustration ( at least on my smartphone, a non-flammable Samsung…I hope)
2: I feel like we are the ultimate Minority. Science is telling me that we will eventually be extinct, capitalization seems like a small concession by humatity given our imminent demise. Unless of course our plans for world domination work.out.
We tried the Global Cooling thing back in the 70s, anything to avoid sunburn; but we pivoted to Global Warming a few yeara, it’s been a huge success, Noone knows what we’re up to.
As I get older, I prefer global warming to global cooling. You’ll have to deal with your freckle issues on your own. Those of us with swarthy Mediterranean skin have our own problems.
“By creating a supportive community of like-minded duds, the insulate themselves from the fact that they suck at sports, at thinking, at achieving.”
These places called bars, sometimes also known as pubs, taverns, and taprooms have existed for millennia.
Duds, suds, same diff.
In my experience, even when they weren’t giving the trophies for failure, they were still giving them for the wrong things, and hadn’t even relearned how to tell the winners from the losers.
When my oldest was in the 6th grade, they had a special awards ceremony for students who did well on the standardized tests. My daughter actually did better than any other student at the school on the standardized tests, but didn’t get a couple of the ribbons she was entitled to according to the school’s own criteria. This was after they changed the dates twice on the ceremony because they wanted to get everything “perfect.” The ceremony itself was a huge clusterfuck — they didn’t even have the ribbons sorted in alphabetical order, and basically had a mob at the table at the front.
I ripped the principal a new one in a letter to her boss and the school board, explaining that I didn’t think this particular thing should be a horse race, but by god, if they were going to make a horse race out of it and emphasize its importance to the students and parents through multiple mailings, they damn well needed to learn how to to figure out which horse finished first.
Oddly enough (/s), I, some of my peers, and at least one study disagree with you about the results of “participation trophies” and similar nonsense. It turns out that many kids are not stupid, and know when they are doing badly; fake trophies and false praise simply make them believe that all praise is a lie to make them feel better, and that they really suck at life in general (As one might expect, this is especially true of people susceptible to depression).. E.g., instead of boosting self-esteem and turning them into self-entitled narcissists, such things destroy self-esteem, and make the child cynical about praise or reward in general.
Russian proverb: “Hard times breed strong men. Strong men make better times. Better times breed weak men. Weak men make for hard times.”
As for participation trophies, there is only one that matters and we all get it-a tombstone, the question is how much you do before you earn it.