The Des Moines Register picked up Froma Harrop’s piece titled “Middle class has aided its own decline” published no January 2, 2012. She writes for the Providence Journal. (aka projo) She makes a point about living middle class lifestyle and how those living in suburbia have abandoned what madbecause the middle class lived a lifestyle it couldn't afford it's now finding out there is no free lunch. To do otherwise is to abandon the ideas that got you there and the house of cards sooner or later had to come crashing down. I found Harrop’s January 3, 2012 article on point. Suburbia is where I grew up, learned to work and how to live within certain means. 

I grew up in Rhode Island (Bristol) and in Massachusetts (Westboro and Boston for a short stint) during the 60's and 70's. My father died when I was a teenager and my mother taught us to live a rather frugal lifestyle. I left New England and moved to Iowa in 1975 to attend college then decided to stick around. I showed up with $110.00 in my checking account and $25 in my pocket. Then I liked what I saw about Iowa; the frugal lifestyle most Iowan’s lived. Farmers were smart with what little they had or else they were out of business. But a lot has changed and not all for the good. What now appears to be the base of our economy is a free lunch and is nothing more than government gone amuck printing money as if it will never catch up with us. But the law of mean revision has a way of bringing everyone back to reality. Running budget deficits can’t go on forever. And even though we don't say it aloud, we all know this free lunch will come with a huge price.  The idea of the free lunch has been around for a long time. I saw it as my children were growing up and the high school students drove better cars than did the teachers. 

My children understand what I’m saying today. For 10+ years I coached youth soccer and fought a losing battle over my refusal to hand out something for nothing, participation trophies. I referred to it as The Participation Trophy Syndrome, where parents encourage the development of a defective character by rewarding children who give a mediocre to lesser commitment to the team then demand their child be rewarded. When we encourage mediocrity in children during their formative years we are developing a defective character. Pop psychology would say to make children feel good about who they are no matter what the committment; but kids realize they aren’t winning a trophy.

Only losers will accept a participation trophy; a winner wants to win one.

If you convince a child he's a winner just for showing up he/she develops a seriously flawed character - a defect if you will - because they begin to believe just their showing up is enough to be given a pay check. You aren’t special just because you show up; you actually have to commit yourself to doing something. In sports it's practice, work on your skill set and suffer the pain of working harder than the next guy. It’s no different than a 5-5 football team going to a bowl game. You aren’t fooling anyone.

Do you think the Chinese kids are being given participation trophies?

To the kid convinced that’s he’s a winner even though his team lost more games this season than they won, sacrifice is a foreign concept. The child that is convinced he's a winner even though he lost, is running a trade deficit. That’s a fact because they don't understand failure. Failure is your own bootstraps. The bully thinks he’s a winner just because he’s the biggest kid on the playground. And beign a bully works right up until the day it doesn't. If you don't experience the pain of being a failure then how can you ever develop the skill set that allows you to become a winner?

The Iowa Edict – The Participation Trophy Syndrome

The Participation Trophy Syndrome is not a children's issue it's a parental defect pushed on kids by parents who feel guilty and want their child to be spared the pain of experiening trivial failure. There is nothing wrong with failure; it's a necessary experience in life to properly develop a good and healthy character based on a solid foundation. Let them fail to this small degree and some will develop the skill set needed to become winners. And some won't, but that's life. Not everyone can be at the top.

In my ten plus years of coaching soccer no child ever asked me for a participation trophy, only their parents.

So it's no wonder that the same people who destroy their own financial lives with irresponsible spending push the same defective values on their children. It’s one thing to take a chance and to fail financially, that’s okay, but to spend everything you make and to live on credit beyond your means is the worst kind of participation trophy. Our government is doing the same thing to us. The  Congress keeps handing us through big business one participation trophy after the next. Froma Harrop’s article is nicely written, read it and then reread it to your children; it’s a lesson worth instilling in them. Maybe we and our kids can't be saved, but this next generation can.