Celebrating Mediocrity

by Keith McCurdy

Recently a friend told me a story about his son’s football banquet.  As my friend put it, they weren’t even close to making another team nervous; they lost almost every game of the season.  The funny part of the story was his son’s reaction when he received a trophy.  He turned to his father and asked very emphatically, “Why did I get this”?  His son was not mad, he was not upset …. he was insulted.

 As his Dad attempted to encourage him that it was for being on the team, his son continued to protest and lament that they didn’t do anything to earn the trophy so he was still unclear why they had all gotten trophies.  Holding back a little laughter, his Dad told him, “Well, I guess they knew everybody would want one.”  To this his son mumbled …  “That is just stupid.”

I like this kid.  He has an instinctual awareness that life is not fair and that not everybody should get a trophy and definitely not for a subpar season.  My friend reports that to this day, the trophy is somewhere in his son’s closet, not on the shelf with the ones his son knows he earned.

Here is another perspective on the same topic.   I spent this past weekend with 500+ Cub Scout folks.  We were in the woods for the weekend doing fun Cub Scout things.  Now there are multiple things that I love about scouting. For one,  it is the only organization,  outside of the church,  that I am aware of that supports the development of our sons  in a constructive and character based fashion from first grade until they are eighteen years of age.  Another is that scouting targets the correct goal; the development of young men into quality citizens with an awareness of caring for and being of service to others and the world around them while instilling the importance of values and a moral foundation.

Yet, at our evening campfire program, not every child received an award.  We regularly give out “Bulls-eye” awards for those kids that have hit the target during the day with either a BB gun or Bow and Arrow.  The kids that missed the target don’t get one.  In many years of being involved with scouting and campouts, I have yet to see a child heartbroken or discouraged from not receiving one.  I have, however, seen each year the determination of these same kids to work harder to master the skill to earn one.

Now, all of these kids are continually encouraged and affirmed for their efforts, but not given cheap or hollow awards.  That is the way it should be.  In scouting, you don’t get an achievement or merit badge unless you earn them.  Without that, they have no value.  It is no accident that employers love to see that a prospective employee is an Eagle Scout.  They know it has been earned.

When we celebrate mediocrity, we motivate downward.  When everybody gets a trophy… who needs to try?  This truly is a new phenomenon in our country.  Most folks over the age of 50 would agree that they never received trophies and awards that they did not earn.  Today, if everybody doesn’t get a trophy, it is as if we have done something terribly wrong and we are damaging their self-esteem.  That is complete hogwash.

  When we celebrate mediocrity, we accomplish three very problematic things in our children’s lives.  First, we discourage work ethic.  Work ethic is developed in response to adversity in a process.  Another word for this is perseverance.  As we know from the book of James, this is the engine for the development of maturity.  The second thing we accomplish is promoting the wrong notion that everything must be “fair.”  This illusion that we often support throughout childhood will come crashing down when our children get into the real world.  Fairness is neither a healthy ideal to pursue, nor a state that can ever be achieved.  The third thing is a sense of entitlement or the notion that everyone should have whatever they want.  For years the term I have used with parents is “economic justice.”  Economic justice is described in two ways.  First, “Because I want something, I should have the right to have it.” Secondly,” If you have it, I should also have it.”  “Even if you worked for it and I didn’t,  I should have it.”  This idea has eroded parenting and the healthy upbringing of our children for more than 50 years.

Warning! Warning!  We are about to flirt with politics …maybe.  As the family goes, so goes the country.  We are seeing these issues played out in a small way with the “Occupy whatever” crowd.  In my opinion, and if you listen to them and read their website, we are witnessing a cultural “temper tantrum” made up of folks that have just come to realize that the world isn’t fair and they don’t like it.  Their cries for “fairness” and “economic justice” are loud and clear, yet woefully off the mark.  The average age and upbringing of the majority of the supporters demonstrates that we have motivated downward and are now reaping the results.  Many of us, who are just a few years older, are going through the same economic hardships and financial struggles, with less time to recover.   Yet our response has been to work harder and smarter.

I would bet that many of those folks got a lot of trophies for just showing up when they were younger and I doubt there are many Eagle Scouts among them.  As parents we need to encourage work ethic and reward excellence.  Only then will things begin to move upward once again.

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