Everyone gets a trophy- Trashing American Self Esteem
Posted: Monday, January 24, 2011
by Jon Searles
My daughter recently worked many hours preparing to try out for her school play. She sincerely wanted a lead in the spring musical. Hours upon hours in our living room she sang, danced, and worked on her monologue. She knew she would be up against stiff competition. Young women who had years of voice lessons, and dance classes were all working for the same role as my daughter.
In our society’s quest to make everyone feel good, we have tried to manipulate and falsely build self esteem which has had some rather disappointing results. Along with that, if we measure ourselves to an already low opinion of those around us we find we are in need of some type of medication to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. I am sure researchers could find a correlation between “false self esteem building”, for which there must be a syndrome, and the need for anti depression medication.
A properly built self esteem needs some resistance, struggle, and failure. The following story told in a variety of ways illustrates this point. I am sure many of you have read or heard this tale. The author of the original is unknown.
Once a little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He carefully picked it up and took it home to show his mother. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and she said he could if he would take good care of it.
The little boy got a large jar from his mother and put plants to eat, and a stick to climb on, in the jar. Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat.
One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely. The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon. The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly.
The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through. He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.
At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn’t break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress!
The boy was so concerned he decided to help. He ran to get scissors, and then walked back (because he had learned not to run with scissors…). He snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!
As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly’s wings would expand.
But neither happened!
The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
It never was able to fly…
As the boy tried to figure out what had gone wrong his mother took him to talk to a scientist from a local college. He learned that the butterfly was SUPPOSED to struggle. In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly. The boy’s good intentions hurt the butterfly.
As you go through school, and life, keep in mind that struggling is an important part of any growth experience. In fact, it is the struggle that causes you to develop your ability to fly.
Have we been raising generations or children like the caterpillar in the story? Have we been working to eliminate any type of struggle causing weak and useless wings? We have the best of intentions, but we do not like to see someone work through the pain and discomfort we may have experienced but without this in their lives they are incompletely formed. Someone one told me that “losing builds character” and the lives of great people who have lived through adversities has proven that over the centuries.
We are all good at something. Finding a talent in which you can expand and become the expert or best is more important than making sure everyone’s self esteem is not damaged because they did not get a trophy or an award just for participating along with everyone else. Whether you win an Olympic gold medal or employee of the year with a restaurant chain you have worked hard and earned something at that moment that no one else qualified for and it is your spotlight. I regret that I at times did not let my sons struggle more as they grew up. My middle son said it best one time when he told me he did not want to enter a sports competition because he “did not want to find out that someone was better than him.”
Growing up, I remember my disappointments and the times where I fell short in competition. The time when my art project won Honorable Mention instead of first place, the time I was cut from a Little League team because I could not play at the same level, or the time my chili recipe came in dead last at a cook off event were all disappointments that shaped me and compelled me to never want to feel that sense of failure again. It made me search out things that I was good at doing. I was not going to be a famous artist, baseball player, or the next Iron Chef, but I was going to succeed. If we never feel a sense of failure how will we know how good success is when it arrives or even be able to identify it properly? Think about it, if we never feel complete failure or complete success, we have an incompletely formed self worth.
The topic as it relates to self esteem is only one very small aspect of a very complicated human trait. Arguments have been made that too much failure as well as too much false sense of accomplishment can ruin a person’s self esteem. Balance seems to be the proper combination, which seems to be the combination needed in everything we do from nutrition to relationships. As parents we can balance our children’s successes and failures by identifying strengths and encouraging the pursuit of those things we see show the most promise. We can also encourage participation in things that may not be as strong but could result in us finding a hidden strength or talent.
My daughter did not get the lead, but she was proud of herself for trying. I was more disappointed simply because, as her father, I know she is the best. She eased my sense of disappointment by telling me she would just have to try harder next time and she was very happy for her friends who had won the lead roles. Wow, I wondered, she must have learned that from her mother.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)This was a great article and I agree with you. The school system today works much as you describe. In hopes of building self-esteem students are pushed along whether they're ready to move ahead or not. They don't win in the end obviously when at some point they are in the workplace and have to perform, and can't. It's too bad your daughter didn't get the part but sounds like she handled it very maturely. You (and your wife) must have done something right Jon!Please log in to respond to this comment.Brianna,
Thank you for your comments. My daughter is one of a kind and is constantly teaching her parents.Please log in to respond to this comment.
Thank you for addressing a topic that needs some looking at. We used to love to compete... one time due to being ill the year prior I was placed in an average tract in my classes... there were 3 of us who then competed for the top A in the class. We loved it and it was friendly yet motivating. It didn't hurt us a bit. Reaping and sowing are a fact of life and if kids don't learn that then when they get out of school and into "real life" it will be a rude shock. Great thoughts!Please log in to respond to this comment.
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