Is this attitude catching on in the US?
Asked by
davidk (
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)
December 18th, 2009
I came upon a blog/article that I couldn’t believe was seriously intended. When I asked the author about it, she vehemently denied that her blog was a joke. Then I got a lecture on how “moms like her” were “bringing equality to sports” and “saving a generation from the disease of competitive sports.”
I was unaware of this movement. Are the claims of this woman real?
I obtained her permission to re-post her blog on Fluther. She challenged me to verify that “many people agreed with her.”
Here is what she wrote:
“Triumphant, I watched with a heart brimming with pride, as my son flung his bat aside and flittered from base to base, blissfully unaware of the prior stigma attached to the cruel ‘three strikes and you’re out’ mentality. Indeed, every child swung his heart out in that revolutionary t-ball game. Not a single soul cared if every child swung and missed the over-sized, pink balloon-ball. They all hit a home run that game. They all ran the bases in their own way too. The blissful looks of achievement on each six-year-old’s face…I will never forget their smiles.”
“That day, my child and every other child, were liberated from the sports-Nazis. They were liberated from the oppressive rules of the past that discriminated and punished children who couldn’t hit the hard, unforgiving ball…”
“As every child got to swing a bat, run the bases, and touch home base, a new atmosphere of inclusion was born. The age-old seriousness attached to this game vanished…”
I was there when ES (equality in sport) was born. To this day, I still get tingles down my spine thinking back to that first game. The children’s hearts and minds were free from concern. They were free from performance anxiety. They could just be themselves, and nobody cared. By the end of the 9th inning the thought struck me: what would keep us from taking this glorious notion to the next level? From that moment forward, I became a soldier in the ES army. I dedicated myself to bringing ES to all age groups. After all, why shouldn’t all children, up to age 18 at least, experience the strength through joy that comes with ES? It was then that I had the vision for ES in high school sports. It became my mission to bring a level playing field, and the unmitigated joy that brings, to all children, everywhere.”
“It was going to be an uphill battle though. Eradicating centuries KSP (Keeping Score Prejudices). Pushing back the old, competitive mentality that was a cancer on all sport was going to be tough.”
“For instance, after the completion of that first ES t-ball game, you wouldn’t believe how many boys asked me, ‘Coach…when do we play the real game?’ ”
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38 Answers
Probably, there really are hyper-competitive sports jackasses in the U.S.. I wouldn’t say competitive sports are bad, and this woman is going too far, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Plus, nobody wants to hurt kids’ feelings. That’s why schools are such failures.
I personally think that the ‘everybody wins’ mentality is a really bad idea. Life just doesn’t work that way.
‘Coach…when do we play the real game?’ Obviously, even kids recognize this fact.
Wow, that’s kid of crazy. If a child cant be taught to follow the rules of a game, how can we expect them to grow up and follow the laws of the land?
Oh, please, it’s hilarious. If it’s not a parody it should be. What a crock.
She certainly feels strongly that this is the correct way to educate children – but sports are competitive, by nature, so it would be better to teach your kids about losing and winning and how neither of those should make one cry or be mean or be overtly happy.
If they can accept winning they should also accept losing.
I’ve heard of this, and I think it’s a joke. Learning how to win as well as learning how to lose is important. I wish the children she’s talking about good luck in the future. They’re going to need it.
Not me—and not in my area. Sports are competitive as they should be. There are other things for kids to do who don’t make the team. This whole “let’s not be competitive” movement has made it way to Washington in the form of support for socialism. Competition and innovation are American—sports, school, and careers. The competitive nature of sports grow with the age of the child. I agree people can go overboard—flying your seven year old every other weekend to South Florida to be coached by a pro is overboard. Holding your child out of school until he’s seven so that he will have an “athletic advantage” is overboard. Parents need to find the right balance for their children. But as for the initial post, that’s probably a first-time mom who can’t imagine her child feeling inadequate. Like it or not, we all get to feel that at some point—it might as well be in a sport.
This sortof thinking is bad for children, and leads to unrealistic expectations about life. No wonder kids today are such neurotic wimps.
Never heard of this movement. Perhaps, like @thriftymaid, the problem with sports is that having children involved in sports becomes a family lifestyle commitment for families, and a competition for parents because sports participation dominates family dynamics.
There should be more access to rec leagues, and access to sports instruction/coaching that does not require carpool schedules. Soccer/hockey moms are a bit of a cultural joke, but in my area, “football dads” were banished from the block where one high school practice field is located. When summer practice starts, about 30 men take off from work in the afternoon, sit in lawn chairs across the street and sideline coach. Most of these guys were alumni and former players, and are reliving their youth through their sons. It’s hard for the coaches because guys like this financially subsidize the sports program.
Perhaps schools need to put recess and sports equipment back into schools, so kids can play non-competitive, inclusive games at recess.
Sounds like she’s trying to be a poet/creative writer.
@thriftymaid
Interesting. Would you mind expounding a bit on your point that there is a connection between the way this woman thinks and socialism?
So far, it looks as if I was correct and the author of the blog was wrong about the majority of people favoring her view of sports and how they should be fixed.
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond to my question. Great Answers were showered by me upon all!
I haven’t heard of this exact version of “sports,” but I have heard that they’ve been going down that road for a while. According to some people, it’s important that every kid feel praised, like a winner.
It seems to be related to the way the younger adults (20ish) where I’ve worked seem to need constant praise. They were “winners” and praised so often as children so that they don’t feel bad, that now they’ve taken that attitude to work, where they demand “positive recognition” as a needed, important part of their work experience.
Like this
I am surprised most people on this site don’t agree. Doesn’t everyone like equality? Equality in sports makes more sense that financial equality, because sports are simply made up.
I believe in equal opportunity. That is not synonymous with “equality”.
You know, if parents, teachers and others concerned with the welfare of children took the time to help them discover with them where their interests, talents and motivations lead them, this woman wouldn’t be arsed with her son hitting a soft pink ball. She’d be helping her son do something that he loved doing on his own and was getting better at and being proud of himself.
She needs to teach her son that “failure” means try another approach or try something different, not “you’re a loser and you suck and you’ll always suck forever and ever”. So, in her way, she too buys into the cruel ‘three strikes and you’re out’ mentality. Feh.
@pdworkin
Equal opportunity is not the same as absolute equality is it? Great point.
There is a time to just play and a time to compete. I think there is a time and a place for both. I think PE (Required, not elective) should be organized play and competitive sports should be elective.
I can’t see the HS varsity football team “not” keeping score. That’s just silly.
@Judi
Fine points. Believe it or not, this woman insisted that keeping score is “essentially militaristic.”
@ccrow
Ironically, as you point out, the kids saw the activity as a sham and apparently were bothered by (or at least bored out of their friggin minds with) this woman’s version of non-competitive sport.
I don’t understand. What’s the point of playing if there’s no competition at all? You just hit a ball and run around the bases, no three strikes you’re out? How long was the damn game?! What do the people in the field do, just stare at the ball on the ground?
I hope that attitude isn’t catching on.
@casheroo
Very funny! You know what I imagine? Kids sitting in the outfield picking daisies, oblivious to everyone and everything around them, while mom is running about kissing every boo boo, wiping every runny nose, totally enthralled by her bizarre creation.
@davidk ; That sounds like what my 3 year old grand son did at his first soccer practice. My daughter was so embarrassed.
@Judi
I’m writing a VERY sarcastic version that takes this woman’s ‘point’ to its ‘logical’ conclusion. It’s just about finished.
Yeah ok and in this perfect world of non-competition sports we shall all have 1st place ribbons that won’t be worth a squat because “everyone’s got one” yay for them!!! BORING!!! If we all won then what would be the point? Everyone would have multi million dollar homes and there would be nobody on the bottom rung looking up going, “Someday I will have one!” So what happens when we start treating every child like a winner? They all turn out to be spoiled little brats that think they deserve a raise every time they do what they were hired to do (Look, I made that big mac right there, when do I make $20 an hour??? I won’t but, but… My mom said I was a winner and I deserve to make the same as everyone else!) Get a life and get those rose colored glasses off that kid before it’s too late!
I tried to get my Willie involved in sport for years. From the time my son started his association with the Little Champions Badminton League, at age four, he displayed no interest in physical activity of any sort. Consequently, we made certain that his SAP (Sport Adaptation Profile) and his 504-AA reflected his need “to participate in his own way in the flow of the game”. For Willie, that meant that he would walk on and off the field of play, at will, or sit on the grass (in bounds, of course) and be the team’s “Tracker.”
Though he never lifted a finger, let alone his racket, he never made a single attempt to dodge a shuttlecock. Rather, my darling boy observed with keen eyes.
After being his team’s Tracker for seven years, I began to become concerned that Willie never did anything in his daily life that might be construed as physical activity.
It was on his fourteenth birthday that I first noticed that he was nearly one hundred pounds overweight. He couldn’t even blow out his birthday candles or move to his Lazyboy to play his friend Doogie in Madden 2010 without being out of breath.
Something needed to be done.
My husband and I concluded that we’d take Willie with us on vacation to the Florida Keys, and see if a radical change in scenery might do the trick.
On the first day at the beach Willie never got up off his favorite, purple, Teletubbies Towel. We could tell by the look of terror in his precious eyes that the harsh clamor of the breaking waves really disturbed him.
Nevertheless, my husband took Willie and I for a stroll one day. At first Willie went limp and refused to cooperate, but Mindy cajoled him with his favorite fruit rollups. Willie perked up and went for a walk with us.
He didn’t seem to mind this activity, as long as others got out of his way. Oh, that reminds me, I neglected to mention that Willie was diagnosed with PCAD five years ago. Pathway Comprehension Apprehension Disorder is a very serious condition among teenage boys. Willie has a very acute case of PCAD. Anyway, we made sure that Willie wore his bright green “Condition Cap”, emblazoned with a fire-yellow PCAD button on it!
Getting back to what happened on the walk…
About four city blocks away from our beach house we came upon a group of teenage girls playing badminton on the beach.
Willie, who almost never even looks around, spotted the half-dozen nubile athletes and squeeled with delight. He stripped off every stitch of clothes and bounded over to the girls. After hugging each of the teenagers, Willie grabbed an extra racket and joined in.
Willie actually sweated. I think it is the first time I’ve ever seen Willie sweat! He played all day and didn’t want to stop for dinner, even though Mindy told him that we were going out to Chuck E. Cheese!
Little did we know that afternoon, when we set out for our walk, that we’d run into a group of teenage girls with CCA (Clothing Confinement Anxiety). Not only did all of the girls have CCA, they also had ankle tattoos coded for PDAC (Public Display of Affection Compulsion). So, Willie got lots of big hugs from his new friends.
Months later we took Willie for his quartrly SAP and had his 504-AA revised. The adaptations work like a charm and Willie has lost more than 80 pounds since the start of the season. The solution was so simple. He plays badminton with reckless abandon now, but he will only do so when wearing only socks. Additionally, many girls in the Champions Badminton League now play in the nude to accommodate my sweet Willie.
PS—I’ve been laughing so hard while writing this that my sides hurt. Have some fun with this and write your own version.
From the blog: After all, why shouldn’t all children, up to age 18 at least, experience the strength through joy that comes with ES?
Ummm, because you don’t just suddenly understand that the world is competitive when you turn 18 – especially if you have been taught the opposite up to that point. I think it is dishonest and misleading to the kids. These children going to be ill-prepared for life in the real world.
Bottom line: Everyone who interviews doesn’t get the job.
As long as professional sport can be rigged, it’s never gonna catch on.
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard what makes you think kids these days are neurotic wimps? do you have children? do you know what children were like in the past? any evidence to this apparent shift?
@Simone_De_Beauvoir, my mom is in charge of a rather large childcare center that processes several hundred individual children weekly, and I have clocked in well over a hundred hours working with children in daycares as well as with child development specialists as an intern. From my experience with children today, the majority of them seem to be afraid of their own shadows and cling to their caregivers, breastfeed until they are 10, etc. Most of them have what I’d call severe attachment and dependency issues, and many of them are on medication for ADD and depression. These are average children too, not abused or special needs kids. I blame the type of attitude exhibited by the blogger for this type of behavior. I clearly remember when I was a little boy and none of us acted that way. If we lost at sports or games, got hurt, etc, we brushed it off. None of us grew up needing therapy or drugs or to become serial killers because of it. Many elderly people I’ve talked to agree with me: kids are being coddled too much today and it is leading to severe psychological and behaviorial issues. No, I don’t advocate being rough or abusive towards children, but my observations have led me to believe that the whole “everyone is a winner lets all hold hands” attitude is not preparing kids for the real world, and they are suffering in the long run because of it.
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I do not think ‘the majority of them breastfeed until they’re 10’ – it is not socially acceptable in this culture to breastfeed for many years or even socially easy to do…there are more kids on medications, yes…this is because of our general move into a more of a pharmaceutical world…not specific to children…I’m glad you didn’t grow up with issues (though of course I don’t know and that is debatable) but who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about because as a public health professional that has done research on the elderly, I would say the older generation suffered from many a mental problem and had no outlet for their suffering…and would have wished to have lived otherwise…point is from all the parents I know and from being a parent myself, I don’t think the blogger’s attitude is the norm.
Well that makes me feel a bit better about the whole thing, @Simone. And I was psychologically abused as a child, but I somehow managed to suck it up. But thank you.
No offence but this woman has too much time on her hands. There is no difference between her cheer leading for equality in sports and those parents who assult the umpires on their child’s behalf. The children have always experienced equality in the sports arena, it’s the parents who don’t remember the feeling and squabble in the stands. The my child is better than your child atmosphere is brought in on the parents shoes and they infect the children with their one up mentality. Competition is encouraged, parents teach their children to be the best, to win the trophy. Just have fun has vanished because parents are living vicariously through their children. Gone are the sandlot ball games, the ones where parents are uninvited to.
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