I played a lot of sports as a kid. I was a perennial all-star in both basketball and baseball up until high school. I had a shelf full of trophies displaying all of my accomplishments. A trophy I never had on my shelf was a participation trophy. No thank you.
It occurs to me that there may never have been a generation before ours with such an ingrained sense of entitlement. Rather than bumper stickers touting the fact that your student made the honor roll, I see ones that say “My child won the monthly attendance award”. Well, color me impressed.
I’m not an advocate of making anyone feel entitled but we have a tendency to over-correct. The reason the idea of participation trophies even came about was to correct our society’s glorification of winners. The mentality is that if you win, you’re valuable but if you lose, you’re a loser. Yet another label I despise.
