(Admittedly, this is not her best picture but it's the only one I took.)
Many years ago, when Katie was still a wee babe, I noticed a bumper sticker that said, "My child is a Terrific Kid at Blah-Blah School!" I turned to Chris and we both started to laugh at how silly and meaningless it was. "All that sticker tells you is that their kid isn't an honor student," Chris said. I heartily agreed.
Fast forward to mid November of this year (I'm a little behind on posts), and I opened a notice from Franklin saying that Katie has been chosen as a "Terrific Kid" for the month, and that we were invited to a little ceremony to honor her and the other students chosen. Guess we were wrong, it isn't completely meaningless after all!
Katie was very excited about the whole thing, and very, very proud. She paid very special attention to how she was behaving because she wanted to be a good representative of what a Terrific Kid should be. It was adorable to watch her.
So we went to the ceremony, where a child from each homeroom gave a short speech to show how they embody the "value of the month" (respect, in this case.) Katie began her speech by reciting the definition of "respect," and thus her future rhetoric style was begun.
And now I am going to be cynical. This was a big deal for Katie. She took it very seriously, and was sincerely honored to have been chosen. We were (are) very proud of her; honestly, the girl absolutely deserved it! But I realized the rub right away, and it only took Katie a month to see it for herself. A "terrific kid" is chosen from EVERY homeroom EVERY month. That means that out of 20 kids in a homeroom, almost half of them will be named a Terrific Kid by the end of the year. Seriously, if you can't score at least one TK award in your elementary school years you have to actually work at being a loser.
In the words of the Incredibles, "If everyone is special, that means that no-one is special."
Today, Katie came home very perturbed because one of the boys chosen as this month's TK pushed her down on the playground. She can't understand why he was chosen, when his actions have often showed a complete disrespect for "the value of the month." So now Katie is in the uncomfortable position of suspecting that her "reward" doesn't mean as much as she thought it did. She's starting, and this is what makes me angry, to feel that she was foolish to be so proud of showing the "value of respect," because she now suspects that the powers-that-be don't actually care about rewarding the most virtuous (and here's another sticky point, of course - they aren't rewarding virtue. They don't even officially recognize virtue. It's all about "values," whatever ideals happen to be in vogue at this minute. Who the hell decides what a "value" is anyway? Isn't it by definition subjective? I value chocolate-loving, but no-one has yet to offer me a reward for my natural predilection, nor should they. What is inspiring is that by which we rise above our natural tendencies, not some watered-down hooey that claims we should be "good people" without having the guts to explain what makes a person "good.")
So, here we are. Katie is still proud of her award but in a muted, confused sort of way. I've put the bumper sticker up on the fridge, because I am proud of what a great daughter, student and sister Katie is. But I will not affix it to my bumper, because I refuse to give in to this herd mentality. My child is special, and maybe some people might think that makes their kids less special but they couldn't be more wrong. It just means that they haven't taken the time to figure what extraordinary tidbits are lurking in their own children.
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