Perspective. What a powerful word. Especially when it comes to the concept of trophies and awards.
I’m supposed to be focussing on “I once won an award for …” as part of this week’s Finish The Sentence Friday prompt. So, could I come up with an award? Nope. Not a one. I’m sure I must have won some hardware at some point in my life. But who can remember? What I can remember was that time I was on the tv show Let’s Make A Deal and won two donkeys. But I’ve already written about that so that cancels out that option.
Then it hit me. My two children have won a slew of awards between them. A positive slew. I can blather on about them.
BUT Wait! Stay! Don’t flee! This isn’t a post about how over the top, super special my 19 and 21 year olds are. It’s more about the way we award kids today for … simply showing up.
Cast your eye on this beaut:
I know. Isn’t it special? It belongs to my son and just yesterday I flew 3000 miles to photograph this delight that he continues to treasure to this day. It rests on his bedside table, right next to his college textbooks and the framed photographs of me. Thank heavens I don’t have to wait and get the film developed like back in the good old days. I’d miss this FTSF deadline.
Hello.
And now for the truth.
This is where that trophy truly was before I hauled it out and took the photo.
Shoved in with the other Mr. McKenzie trophies in a box in our messy storage room. Forgotten.
And what did my darling, oh-so-accomplished son do to receive this trophy and the other numbers poking up and hiding within the carton?
He joined a soccer team. Yes. Joined. And guess what? Every other teammate got an exact same trophy! Every year!
Back to my opening sentence re perspective. I’ll admit that the end of season banquets – where these gems were handed out – were always a huge success as the boys were thrilled to receive their trophies. My son brought his home and plopped it right next to the one he got the season before. Somehow there was always room for one more.
My daughter wasn’t thrilled. Her team didn’t hand out trophies for anything. Her shelves were woefully empty. Until that final year. As I remember it, the team was disbanding and the coaches wanted to honor the players. SO! Each girl got a trophy! Taller and shinier that anything my son ever got. Hallelujah!
But now – some years later – all of these special and treasured trophies have been banished to that box in the basement.
Trophies and Awards. Really?
Ok, so let’s have a look at a really authentic and special trophy.
My great-grandfather won this trophy when he came second in the Eastbourne Devonshire Club Handicap Walking Race on November 30th, 1911. His time for the 15 mile walking race? Three hours. Damn. That’s an 8.33 mile average pace. Walking. Now that’s an achievement worth noting.
Do his descendants treasure it? We most certainly do. Another family member has the honor of keeping it safe.
- Oh how times have changed in 103 years …
Wonder where the soccer “joiner” trophy will be in 103 years from now?
This post was inspired by the Finish The Sentence Friday prompt of “I Once Won An Award For …”As always, our host is the lovely Kristi . Today’s guest hosts are Allison McGrath Smith and Allison Barrett Carter.
Enough about me and my perspective on trophies and awards. Really? Yes, I’m curious about you. Have you won an award? Can you even remember? Do you treasure a trophy? How about your kids? Do you rent out extra storage for their awards? If you’d care to share, I’d love to hear.
36 Responses
I adore this, and I agree with everything! I actually had a line about how the kid’s trophies are stored in a box in my closet, because I refuse to display them, because of the spirit in which they’re given today. But I was afraid that one of my kids would read it, and go looking for the box. Or, that a trophy loving mom would hate-comment me:)!
Yes! That’s it exactly what my two would have done. A trophy box hunt! Yay! Double hunt weekend – chocolate and trophies! Grinning here with the knowledge that you are with me on the “No way those trophies are going on display” front.
Wait, you were on Let’s Make a Deal?!? How did I miss that one! Off to read it. But first, my parents recently gave me my trophies from high school. Uh, thank you? My dad suggested I donate the trophies but rip the plaque off each one so I could treasure my accomplishments forever (not his words) in a compact manner. I’ll get right on that. Maybe next year. Or the year after.
Yes Katy. Get right on that, would you? Perhaps you could scrapbook the plaques this very weekend? Mind your fingernails. Ripping those babies off (with their tiny nails) off the trophies could do serious damage if one wasn’t careful.
Have you read the book Playing to Win? She laments the fact that kids get trophies for everything. she says it negates the value of a trophy and that kids KNOW it, too. So I love this post! & can I refuse trophies my sons are about to get as they enter the sports world? 🙂
No! I haven read Playing to Win. Sounds like just the ticket though so I’ll check it out. Thank you. My son was thrilled with his soccer trophies but he also got ribbons and plaques for swimming. Those latter were earned and are still hanging around.
I feel for you just starting out on this trophy rewarding journey! Perhaps you could rent extra storage space?
What a cool trophy to have in the family (the one won by your great-grandfather)! Sadly, we don’t have many items like that in my family — some pictures of the family in the old country, but certainly nothing as fancy as a silver cup! That’s so cool!
And oh yes, I’d have tried to keep the donkeys for a while. Or least until I convinced the stage hand to trade the donkeys for that car!! 😉
Yes it is really cool to have the cup. My dad resurrected it. He was given it by his cousin and it was in very sad shape with a huge dent on the side. Dad had it restored. Today the young cousins and siblings argue over their various athletic accomplishments and who should have the honor of going on the various plaques at its base! Quite a hoot.
And I was single and living in an apartment when I won the donkeys. How smart of you to suggest I push for the car! Silly me.
You won two donkeys?? OMG I have to go read that – awesome! I do love the trophy your great grandfather got – that’s special. The ones for being on the team though? I don’t even know where mine are from when I was a kid. So dumb. Thanks so much for linking up as always, sweet friend! Off to read about the donkeys now (HAHA!).
It’ll be interesting to see if the “trophy box” is pitched when my kids move out. Probably. They really are superfluous crap. But I bet the plaques that were well and truly earned will find a home in their new places, if only in a drawer…
Wow, you hit the nail on the head with this one ! My girls also have a box of trophies each for being a team member, so no sense of true competition or achievement. Love the trophy that your great grandfather one though, so cool !
Yes Jane it really is the coolest trophy. Can’t help but wonder what the first place trophy looked like and if it’s still hanging about.
I’m jumping up and down clapping about this post!!! I actually have one coming up that is very similar. I can’t stand the fact that everyone feels like they have to get a reward for everything they do these days. (I know everyone is a bit much but….)
Of course, I just opened a package from the race director of the 50 mile trail race that I didn’t complete – they sent me a medal since I ran over 13.1 (there was a half, full and the 50) and they felt like I deserved something. I don’t care about the medal but the fact that they took the time to do that was very sweet.
That is very sweet of them to take the time to do that, Kim. I agree. But to get an award for just being on a team? Now that’s just silly. We shall stand up and jump together! Looking forward to reading your post on this!
Great post! My kids have so many trophies from their younger days of playing sports, gathering dust in the closet. I never know what to do with them! I’m so over the “everyone gets a trophy for participating” thing. It doesn’t teach a thing about real life, does it? Off to read about the donkeys now…
Nope doesn’t teach a thing. I’m firing the boxes of trophies at my kids when they move out. They can choose. Or should I do it before they notice they’re gone…? Naaaaah. That wouldn’t be very rewarding on my part. Bad mommy.
I LOVE that you have your great-grandfather’s trophy! And you’re right, that’s an impressive time!! I wonder if I could even do that?!? Wow. Great idea to showcase your family’s trophies.
But don’t you just wish you could eyeball the first place trophy, Beth? It must be splendid.
Excellent article Kelly. As a meet manager and board member of the swim team for many years, I wrestled with this concept quite a bit. Ribbons, medals and trophies should give kids something to strive for – not just acquire for showing up!
Exactly.
Loved it! Trophies and awards? mmm… I agree with you, but I must admit, I got nostalgic when my son got a soccer farewell for merely being a senior…
I can see how you’d get nostalgic. That’s a really special time.
Now that’s a trophy! In the old days they were huge weren’t they? What a special memento to have in your family, Kelly. Thanks for the fun post!
Yes – isn’t it quite the trophy? We do treasure it.
I have a wrestling trophy that I won for winning a card game (wrestling-themed) tournament. Before that, the closest I got was a seventh-place ribbon for being in an eight-team basketball league as a kid. (I hate all team sports.)
Oh well done you, Scott. And it’s so great when we reach an age when we no longer have to participate on team sports if we don’t want to, isn’t it?
I like your writing, it’s so fluid and interesting. I will surely come back to your website for more. As a psychologist I find it useful for the though.
Why how very kind of you to say, Anna. I am really enjoying your postcards from the world posts as well. Your photos are amazing.
It is so true that we give awards so much more freely than truly deserved. This is kind of like handicaps in certain sports…I don’t understand them at all. The first bowling league we joined, we won. 1st place. We were the worst team there was I think but because of our handicap, we won…where’s the joy in that? I want to win because I did well, not because I did so bad, they felt sorry for me and gave me a bunch of free points. My expletive comment upon winning referenced children’s sports and how I wanted to with the grown up way…because I actually excelled. We still had a great time and we didn’t get a trophy but the organizer of the league did offer to come and stand on a pedestal in our home as long as we’d feed her once in a while so all was not lost.
Oh Michele I’ve been reading FB posts of yours about your bowling. So interesting to see that you joined more that one league. I can see why you left and joined another now though. That would also annoy the hell out of me to win because of the handicap. Where’s the joy in that indeed.
Handing out trophies for participating seems as silly to me as having kindergarteners dress up in cap & gowns for “graduation” (and again when leaving elementary school, once more for middle school, and then again for high school). By the time the kids actually accomplish something worthwhile, they’ve been given so many trophies, even a hard earned one just doesn’t have much meaning left.
Yes1 I was astonished when my two got dressed up in a cardboard cap for their kindergarten graduation. It was ridiculous. And yes, the plethora of trophies does make the hard won ones seem a weensy bit less special. Thanks so much for popping by and leaving a comment, Deb.
Hmm. I have never won a trophy in my life. That may have had to do with my choice of extracurricular activities. Back when I was 16, they didn’t give them out to editors of the literary journal. Neither was being one of many altoes in the choir considered trophy-worthy at the time. I did not receive a trophy for having approximately three lines in Tom Stoppard’s “On the Razzle.” Come to think of it, I did not even get a trophy for avoiding YA novels at all cost, but instead gulping down shots of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. No, trophies were woefully sparse in those old, sad days. I’m certain that literary editors receive them every season now. “Just toss it with the rest of them,” these modern editors sigh, flexing their fingers for another athletic typing performance. But perhaps I’ll receive a trophy post-humously for services to my country via community college literary journal. Perhaps it will be a very, very shiny trophy. I might like that. I might give it a cardboard box of its very, very own.
Oh Harmony this did make me smile. Mostly in recognition as it was the very same for me. Being in the school play year after year certainly was fun but did it get me a trophy? NOPE. I do, do hope that one day you receive that very, very shiny trophy. And may you receive it pre-humously so you can treat it to AND admire it in a very special cardboard box of its very, very own.
I applaud your post! I’m afraid kids today expect too much for showing up. I have a trophy my husband gave me when we dated a year – he had it engraved – To Vickie Martin 2006, The best damned woman! Funny, it was the only anniversary gift I ever got! I got a letter in middle school for playing the piano for our chorus – I showed it to my husband, left it out, and my dog chewed it in half – so much for that – I didn’t have a letter sweater anyway
He gave you a trophy? Now that’s a keeper. What a gem. Grinning here over the fact that your dog chewed the letter. Anyone of the myriad dogs I’ve ever had the pleasure of living with would have done the very same.