Last night, I read this blog post about bragging. I should start out by saying that I really like Glennon, the author of this blog. But I strongly disagree with her thoughts on this one topic.
This quote sums up Glennon’s position on parents talking about their kids’ accomplishments:
. . . Craig and I have a steadfast rule – no bragging to anyone except each other or the grandparents. We used to allow ourselves to brag to our sisters, but now that they have kids, they’re off limits too.
Basically, our rule means that we keep our mouths shut in public and then we talk in bed about how our kids are better than anyone else’s kids in the whole entire world.
Glennon states her reasons for this as being twofold: Separating unconditional love from pride in accomplishment; respect for other parents. These are noble intentions, but I don’t agree that this is the only way to handle those things.
First, she’s absolutely right that pride and love can end up confused. However, our children still need to hear words of praise. I grew up with very little of that. I knew my parents loved me, but I never knew if they thought I was doing a good job. When I came home from college my second semester, having scored excellent grades, my father told me that I had done better than he had his first year of college—but that his major was harder than mine. It was a slap in the face; I had worked hard and achieved something I was proud of, but I still couldn’t expect so much as a “Well done!” and have it left at that. When my father tells me that he is “proud” of me now, I have a hard time believing it. He lives hundreds of miles away, has never met my daughter, and in fact has no idea whatsoever what I’m doing these days.
Expressing pride in our kids’ accomplishments can be taken too far, and they may learn to associate love with pride. But a well-placed compliment about the hard work we’ve seen them do can be significant. When our kids have poured themselves into something, heart and soul, we have no problem telling them we’re proud of them. When they’ve succeeded at a task, we honor that. We also make sure that we tell them, every day in multiple ways, that we love them. We show them, we say, “I love you,” we deliver affection. I don’t think that congratulating them on their report cards or dance performances is going to cause them to think we only love them when they do something big.
Second, I have no problem with friends who “brag” about their kids on Facebook and Twitter. I personally don’t put anything up about report cards, but I have no problem with friends who do. I love hearing about the things my friends’ kids are doing. I watch the videos of the piano recitals, I check out the photos from the dance recitals, I hit “like” when a friend’s kid wins the Pinewood Derby. I’m secure in my parenting and I’m proud of the things my kids do, which allows me to celebrate other people’s kids. Sure, I’ve seen parents who don’t handle this very well. There is no question that insecurity often leads to parents who make sure everyone knows their kids are better than everyone else. We’ve all seen the parent who asks for “advice” about their “genius” toddler or the person who never puts anything on Facebook except a lot of pictures of their kids’ awards. But those people are rare, and I remind myself that they probably do these things out of a fear that their kids might not be as good as everyone else’s.
Third, I disagree with Glennon’s perspective that we need to refrain from talking about our kids’ accomplishments out of respect for others. She probably doesn’t mean it this way, but when she says,
And every time I see someone post about their child’s seven goals, I think about my mama friends at home, struggling with their children who have Lyme, or PANDAS, or cerebral palsy, whose kids have a hard time making it up the stairs much less up and down a soccer field.
there is an implication that parents whose kids have Lyme or PANDAS or cerebral palsy have kids who don’t accomplish anything. This idea that somehow one kid being good at soccer takes away from another who isn’t is not only nonsense but hurtful nonsense. I have many friends with special needs kids. Believe me, there is a lot to celebrate, honor, and be proud of. And what about families with one child who is physically and academically capable and one who isn’t? Should those parents refuse to congratulate their child on her accomplishments because her sister might “feel bad”?
I’m sure she didn’t mean to be, but that last bit was self-righteous. Implied in those words was the idea that she, and only she, understands how hard it is for parents with kids who have special needs or learning disabilities. She isn’t looking at it from the perspective of a parent who is actually in that situation. I have a child with ADHD. It may not be physically debilitating, but it’s not easy to manage. Do I wish that he could be like every other kid? Sure, sometimes. Will it keep him from doing some of the things other parents brag about? Yes, definitely. But I wouldn’t change a thing, and I would never tell another mom that she shouldn’t tell the world about her kid because mine is struggling.
I think this boils down to a basic personality difference. Glennon’s life experiences are her own, and my life experiences are my own. She is free to do as she likes. My suggestion would be that if she is bothered by reading parent brags, she should consider not reading them. I hope my friends don’t stop telling me about what their kids are doing, because I’m still listening.
As for what we say when we talk about our kids, we should think carefully about what’s in our hearts. If we’re putting up a Facebook update about something our kids do, it should not be in order to boost our own egos or to cut down others. We should imagine how it will sound to others. Does it sound like we’re saying our kids are better than everyone else? Are we disguising bragging through asking for “advice”? Have we made it sound as though we’re merely relieved our kids aren’t turning out to be delinquents? What’s in our hearts when we share is just as important as what’s in our hearts when we tell our kids we’re proud of them. Other people should know how much we love our kids and that our love isn’t dependent on grades, awards, and goals scored.
I’ve been thinking about this one for the last couple of days; it touches on some things I’ve been musing on for a while.
First, it really sucks that you didn’t get the kind of feedback from your parents that you should have to validate your successes. I’m actually a little surprised to learn that was the case; well, not from your father (sadly, there’s probably nothing in the “acting like a tool” category where he’s concerned that still has any power to shock), but that your mom didn’t either, since from an outside perspective it was so blindingly obvious she was proud of everything her kids did. Maybe she should have been clearer directly to you what came easily talking to other people; or maybe it was a matter of “if everything’s a praiseworthy accomplishment, nothing much is.” I dunno.
But I think this points to a cultural divide that I’ve been trying to formulate for some time about the way different people, particularly in US societies, deal with pride in general. I think we were lucky to come from a family where pride was a baseline; we grew up with the unspoken assumption that we were (quite literally!) inherently special and worthy and notable people just by virtue of being of the line of our grandfather’s issue. It was never put into so many words, but I grew up with the distinct feeling that the House of RG was all but a noble line, just because his awesomeness transmitted genetically through all his descendants.
Which sounds sort of awful and elitist, but in practice, I don’t think it was; first, because within our family, the fact that we were all special meant that there was a lot of emphasis on fairness and sharing and honoring each person’s unique contributions, which I think many of us carried out into the world; and second, because of the assumption of our inherent worth and dignity, we didn’t carry a fear of rejection based on whatever we chose to do with our lives. So in a sense we got to carry the feeling of “Look what I made! Isn’t it neat?” that we got validated for as kids into our adult lives. (And, of course, there were a lot of ways in which is was More Complicated Than That, but as a distillation of our extended family culture I think it’s more or less true.)
On the other hand, lots of people grow up in families where the baseline culture is You’re Nothing Special. (I married into one of those.) You don’t show off your work; you don’t talk about your accomplishments; you never say “Look what I made!” – or at least you don’t past a certain age – because, hey, who do you think you are? And these tend to be families (and subcultures) where people do fear rejection if they make certain choices, and where there’s a kind of sentiment – spoken or not – that you shouldn’t have aims above your station, or get a lot of Ideas about your potential or your place in the world. So these are cultures where you don’t praise your kids, or at least not where anyone can catch you at it; you might not even do it privately, just in case they’re tempted to get swollen heads.
I’m not sure where this come from. I suspect it’s very complex, and may have roots in certain strains of Protestant, or Puritan, ethics that were a big influence in shaping American society. I think it often, but not always, aligns along urban/rural (or at least small town and suburban) lines, which suggests a number of correspondences. And class is almost certainly a factor, though it is also almost certainly so in a way that is not simplistic. The same goes for education.
Anyway, that’s my take on one dynamic which may be at play here. Which may be a bit of a crackpot hypothesis, admittedly. But as one of our frequent guest ministers is wont to say, “I don’t know if this is a true story, but I think there’s some truth in it.”
Well, in fairness to Mom, she just wasn’t very forthcoming about praise in regard to schoolwork. In everything else, I knew she loved me and was proud of me. After all, this is the same woman who came to EVERY SINGLE performance of “Bye Bye Birdie” just to see me play in the pit orchestra–I wasn’t even on stage! (And that love and pride spread to everyone. I lost track of how many times she made us watch the video of “Oliver!” I think I had it nearly memorized.) She made it to every single one of my concerts, including when I was in college and beyond, right up until the one about a month before she died. I didn’t mean to imply that I didn’t know she was proud of me. But I had no idea whether she thought I was good at school or if I was smart, both of which were important to me. Now that I think of it, I suppose if I’d said that I wanted to know what she thought of my grades or intelligence, she would have told me. She was good that way. Dad, on the other hand…well, you said it yourself, he’s always been like that. I like to hope that as a parent, I’m a lot more like Mom.