Earlier this week, my kids went back to school. I started a new
quarter. My wife is finishing one of her quarters. Little man Celli is continuing
to prep to make his debut to this world. I decided that I need to ease my way back into this
blogging thing. I have a lot of things that I am excited to share with you over
this upcoming year. But for this week, I am going to do a repost of a series
that I did last year regarding what I think is a dangerous mentality of “everyone
wins.” This series is designed to create some conversation on what it means to
allow our children to lose and struggle and win. If you read it last year,
maybe you’ll want to skip it…and then again you might enjoy it again. If you’re
new to these parts maybe you’ll love it…or maybe you’ll hate it. We’ll see.
Either way. Here is part one of five.
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Does it seem to you like in today’s society, everyone wins? Do you
feel like people get rewarded just for showing up now? Have you heard
something like, “Hey the other team outscored you by fifteen runs but we
want you to feel good about yourself, so you win too!”?
Yesterday I wrote about
how I had a professor in graduate school who would often ruminate on
this idea. Today, I want to talk about what if he was wrong. What I
actually want to talk about is what if he was wrong about the idea that
everyone should not win? Should everyone win?
If everyone should win, aren’t there some other things that should be true too?
- First, if he was wrong, there are hours of my life I’ve lost to this discussion. I’ll never get those hours back.
- Secondly, if he was wrong you probably do not want to be his kid.
Think about how bad that would be! Think about all the trophies and
medals you would lose out on. - If everyone wins, then shouldn’t everyone get paid the same?
Shouldn’t the guy who’s put no time in going to school get paid the same
as the guy who has done all the training and who has worked hard to
learn more? Shouldn’t the woman who is only slightly skilled at her job
get paid the same as the woman who is extremely skilled? To be fair,
shouldn’t everyone get paid the same just for showing up? Shouldn’t
management and labor get the same exact pay? Where do we limit our quest
for fairness? Shouldn’t all students be simply given a pass/fail?
Forget grades.
Obviously, I think he’s right. I think our society is constantly
moving towards an everyone should win mentality. I also think it is
having negative effects on our children and society.
Tomorrow, I will discuss why I think he’s right. I’ll offer some anecdotal evidence and some clinical evidence.