Good Intentions Gone Wild
I coach my son and daughter’s baseball team. Last Saturday, we had a game; at these games, we focus on learning the game and having fun. One of the parents of the other team, complained and made a minor scene that we shouldn’t be calling “out” when kids get, well, out. She did this after her son ran at a snail-pace towards first base. What is wrong with this picture?
From her perspective, she didn’t want her son to feel badly for his performance. That makes sense, but what will that coddling teach him? Well, it’ll teach him, I think, behavior and attitude that, in the long run, won’t serve him well in the real world.
My take on this situation? Kids and adults need to learn the rules and to play by the rules early and solidify that learning by doing it often. Period. If they fail, that’s fine. They, then, need to learn to pick themselves up, learn from the situation, then move on with life. Children need to learn life skills early, otherwise they become a pariah to society.
My dad died when I was 6 years old. A few months after he died, our house burned down. We were living in the Philippines at the time and were very poor. My mom was left to raise 4 boys. We eventually immigrated to the U.S. and were even poorer here, but we had opportunities and we all learned to work, fail, work harder, contribute, and make something of ourselves. That “immigrant mentality” works and is what created America — look at the founding fathers and the early pioneers — these were men and women who worked, failed, succeeded, contributed, and made a better life for themselves and their posterity.
Key takeaway here? Parents, back off a little bit and quit giving your child everything. If you give and do most things for your child, you will teach them to be sissies as adults and weak in their contribution to the world. Let your child learn from his or her mistakes and allow them to work on their own. Teach him or her the rules of the game and let them learn to obey the rules — not just baseball here, but the game of life. Doing this, while difficult for most parents, will teach them to eventually be self-sufficient and contributing adults. Part of our job as parents is to teach our children to eventually be self-sufficient and decent adults that contribute to the world around them.
Incidentally, when I interview for potential hires at the companies that I’ve worked at, I look very closely at the kind of person they are. I make sure their hands are calloused, as it were, and that the potential hire is somebody that is not a coddled-by-his-parents or given-everything-by-his-parents type of person. Those hires end up being completely worthless to the organization because they have not learned to “swim on their own” and eventually sink, in my experience.
Guy understands what I’m talking about in his post “How to Kick Silicon Valley’s Butt:”
I am a third-generation Japanese American. My family moved here to drive a taxi and clean white people’s homes. If I had a choice between funding someone from a family who moved here from Vietnam whose father and mother run a 7-Eleven versus a descendant of a Mayflower passenger with “IV” in his name, I’ll give you half a guess as to my preference. You need to encourage smart, hungry, and aggressive people to immigrate from around the world. And to do that, you need good schools. To mix several metaphors, if you want to cover your ass, you need to open your kimono because trust-fund kids don’t make good entrepreneurs.
My dad loved war stories & heroes and he especially loved General Douglas Macarthur. Here’s a poem that he held closely to him that I read frequently:
Build me a son who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is a afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee-and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowelede.
Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spew of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.
Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.
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[...] Shmula has posted a marvelous piece, attributed to General Douglas MacArthur: Build me a son who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is a afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory. [...]