I’ve been thinking lately about the path of life and the roads we choose to travel. Sometimes, we’re faced with a hard road of our own choosing with unexpected turns and unknown destinations. I’ve also been thinking about our society of “rewards” and honors. I’ve had to deal with that more than I cared to this year as I’ve helped A. begin the perilous journey through public school where so much emphasis is placed on competition. My poor, sweet, awkward girl hasn’t been the winner in spite of her intelligence, her beauty, and her good nature. It’s hurt her a lot. If we were in a different place in our lives with different goals, I might quit work and homeschool my children. In my opinion, it’s that bad. I feel like we’re scarring her in some way and little Miss L. will be joining in the ruckus next year. I dread it.
I’ve thought about it often these past months as I’ve tried to help my child learn to cope in this cruel world in which we live. Make no mistake. The world is cruel, hideously cruel. Life is cruel enough with its’ unexpected twists and turns without us making it worse, but we do…by choice…and we applaud ourselves for fostering growth and competition. The problem is that we say that attitude is what matters and sportsmanship and trying your best but we don’t really mean it. We exclude and applaud the “best” but let’s be totally honest. The “best” is often luck or a popularity contest, not the actual “best.” I thought of this the other night at prom, a place where everyone could be equal except that we do senior favorites and prom king and queen. A student was sitting outside, near the ticket check-in table, complaining quite loudly about the program going on inside. I couldn’t blame her because what she said was correct. It is a popularity contest that has nothing to do with anything of import. She made the comment, “Girls like me are never on stuff like that.” There was bravado in her voice, but hurt in her words. This was her big night with a fancy dress, a date, and our societal expectations were messing it up. Another teacher replied that there are more people who aren’t prom queen than who are. That’s true but if anything, I think it shows another crack in our society. Why do we choose to divide one another into groups where there are always losers (often through no fault of their own)?
Some might say it’s the way of the world and that’s true, but it’s a world we’ve created and a world we could change except for the fact that we don’t care enough. We choose instead to feel powerless and believe the lies of popular society that label the majority of us “losers” or the kinder “not the winner” instead of standing up for ourselves and saying that all this is garbage. The world doesn’t have to have this much competition. As long as we have democracy and free enterprise, we’ll always have some level of competition, but why should my kindergartner be crying because she didn’t get elected class president or feel sad because her story wasn’t the “best.” I saw that story. I can’t believe a kindergartner wrote it. I couldn’t have done that when I was 5. Unfortunately, she thinks she’s not a good writer now no matter what I tell her. She used to think she was though. She used to be proud of her stories…before the competition that was supposed to encourage children to write their best. She did her best and the only message she received was that it wasn’t good enough.
Competition will always be around but we start too early and we make its’ scope too broad. It isn’t necessary in every part of our lives. It isn’t healthy either. It’s cruel. It’s a senseless cruelty in an already cruel world. I want my children to be happy, all of them (even the big ones). I don’t know how to do it though. We want everyone to work hard in this world in order to be the “best,” but the reality is that there’s only one “best” and the rest of us are just unintentional losers.
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