You gotta have that fire in your belly

One of the dawning realizations of parenthood is that not all children enjoy competition. It could be I forced them into it at a young age and ruined them forever. I’ll add that to the list of complaints they have for their future therapists. My oldest kids have refused to participate in swim team because they don’t like the individual pressure of the meets.

They don’t mind practicing, they just don’t want to do the meets. If you are familiar with swim team, the meets are kind of a big deal and a large part of what your monthly fees go toward. So we really haven’t gotten involved. We do dabble in team sports, but I’m told this is less stressful because you have a whole team to fall back on. I don’t really understand the psychology of this but I’d guess it has something to do with blaming others for your loss instead of yourself…

I digress. The Y offers a pre-team swim team. It’s a great program, 2 practices per week and no meets plus the fees are half of the regular team. This has been a great introduction to the concept of swim team. But still, my kids don’t want to compete.

In fact, at a friend’s house I watched a gaggle of kids set up obstacle courses and then observed my boy spend the entire time participating while shouting, “but it’s not a race! I’m not racing anyone! I’m just doing this for fun because I want to do it!”

If he had used the energy and oxygen it took to speak those words and applied them to the race he probably would have won.

Again, I digress.

Sometimes though, competition is forced upon us. In this case, my oldest had to do a dramatic reading event at school through the county 4-H program. Each student chose a passage from a book that was 2-3 minutes and read it out loud. The assignment counted for a class grade, but the 4-H also sent in a judge to assign points per their scale. The winners of each classroom were then invited to compete against every other elementary school winner in the county.

It was super cool and I love how our schools incorporate other clubs and organizations to get the kids involved in things beyond the classroom.

The day of the classroom competition loomed and my oldest dragged herself off to school filled with terror. She came home with a blue ribbon! She was one of four winners for her school!

Me: Amazing news! I’m so proud of you!
J: Well I’m not. This is terrible. I’m so mad. I can’t believe it.
Me: I am very confused?
J: Now I have to compete at the county level next month!!
*storms off*

Turns out you don’t have to compete, you can opt out of the county competition. I informed her of this and was met with disdain, “of course I’m doing it; I can’t skip it, then everyone would know I was scared.”

DUH MOM.

So we went. It was sort of a playoff situation; all the students were divided into three separate rooms of about 10 kids with 2 judges per room. The winners of each room then competed against each other in front of all 6 judges. Talk about pressure! These 3 winners also automatically qualified to compete at the AREA LEVEL the next month. Which I assume is like state champs? I’m not sure, 4-H is foreign to me. The important point is that she won her room! It was amazing! Can you guess how she responded?

J: I’m so mad. Now I have to do this again and I already feel sick. And then I have to do it again in front of an even bigger audience.

We spent some time talking about being a good sport and that competition is a privilege even if it makes us nervous. You know, parenting opportunity and all. I also highlighted that with only 3 students competing for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, she was guaranteed a spot on the podium so this should relieve some of the pressure.

She ended up placing third and this was amazing! We celebrated, we affirmed, we told her third is fantastic. She told us she didn’t care she was just glad it was over. We got in the car to drive home.

J: I mean, third is really good.
Me: It’s so good. You competed against 600 kids all in and you got third, that’s amazing.
J: Yeah. Like, I feel really good about that. Third place. Any of those kids would have been so happy to get third.
Me: Totally.
J: So, I’m happy. I’m proud of myself. I worked hard. I practiced every day, for weeks…
Me: You really did.
J: Every day for weeks…and I got third…like, third? Is third good?
Me: It’s very good.
J: But it’s not first.
Me: Well no. That’s how it works, that’s what makes it third.
J: I mean, you get third in your races all the time, right? And you’re happy about that?
Me: Ouch. To be fair, I usually get second, but yes, I’m happy about that.
J: Are you happy like, ‘yay, I feel so good about this third place, I don’t even care that someone else got first?’
Me: Ummmm.
J: I guess, I feel, happy.
Me: Very much you have established that.
J: But also, maybe not so happy?
Me: Hmmm.
J: I think I feel happy and something else. I think I’m super proud of myself but I also feel….like I should have done better? I expected more of myself, didn’t I?
Me: Both of those feelings can be valid. Happy and mad, proud and disappointed. You can feel more than one thing at once.
J: No, I’m mad. I think I’m mad. Tell me what you feel when you get third. Second. Whatever.
Me: I feel…like it’s not first. But I also feel like I worked really hard, did everything I could, and that’s what I had on the day.
J: Yeah. I think that’s what I feel. In my stomach. I feel it.
Me: Yeah. I think you might be ready to do a swim meet.

I was running at a playground the other day and a little boy in spiderman clothes, on a spiderman scooter, with a spiderman helmet went past me and he whispered to himself, “I am INCREDIBLE.”

Yeah man. You are incredible. I sped up to pass him back because how often do you get to race spiderman and he said, “oh NO YOU DON’T,” and took off.

It just made me reflect, what age do we start to doubt our incredibleness?