“DREAMS DON’T WORK UNLESS YOU DO.”
“You get out what you put in.”
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
Those are just as few of the things I tell my kids when they’re struggling to accomplish a goal or working toward something they want for their future.
When school gets tough, when they are outperformed or when they have failed to achieve their objectives, it is part of our job as parents to teach our children to press on, lean into the work and dig a little deeper. Well, unless you can control the odds, pay someone off or cheat the system in their favour, right?
This Tuesday (March 12), a story broke about the largest college admissions scam to ever be prosecuted (link to story). 50 defendants across six states are accused of bribing, lying, cheating and scamming their children’s way into some of the most elite schools in the USA and while people should be assumed innocent until proven guilty, the evidence released so far is looking substantial, believable and damning.
The story was particularly interesting because we recognized a few of the prominent names – Lori Loughlin (Aunt Becky, how could you?! Did all of those heart-to-heart talks with uplifting music mean nothing?! Are any trusted parents from ‘80s family sitcoms what they appeared to be?! No wonder we have trust issues!), Felicity Huffman (who already seemed a bit sketchy because she was in Desperate Housewives, but in real life appeared to be a pretty decent human by Hollywood standards) and even respected Vancouver-based businessman and philanthropist David Sidoo. But it really wasn’t the flashy names that bothered me about this story; it was the fact that whether rich, famous or perfectly normal, we see this kind of “parenting” happen all the time — even if it’s usually on a smaller scale.
Call me naive, but it came as a shock to me when my kids entered school and organized sports to discover just how involved many parents are in the minutiae of their children’s lives in an attempt to tip the scales and ensure their children always have “the best” even if it means another child never does.
I wasn’t stupid enough to think we were all playing by the exact same rulebook, but I was amazed to see how many parents interfered in situations that their children actually needed to handle or learn from on their own. (e.g. Offering to purchase new jerseys if it guaranteed their kid would get to wear one when it was clear he wasn’t going to make the team.)
It’s a slippery slope when we begin unnecessarily meddling in our children’s lives. What begins with tweaking the odds in their favour can easily turn into a total loss of conscience and perspective.
“Bending” the system in either small or large ways can cause us to forget the big picture: our most basic job as parents isn’t to gain an edge for our kids, but to help them grow into rounded, grounded, capable and loving humans who believe in fairness, justice and can overcome adversity.
We all want the best for our kids, but unfairly or unnecessarily influencing their worlds financially, through gossip, leveraging privilege, etc. at the expense of other children — who are sometimes working twice as hard with half as much — only furthers the disparity in the world and makes the manipulated child less capable.
I’m sure the parents involved in the college admissions scandal convinced themselves that it wasn’t a big deal, just as many of us regularly do on a smaller scale. I’m sure they justified their actions by saying that everyone was doing it, money should have its advantages, you’ve got to look out for Number One, they loved their kids and that no one would ever know.
But ultimately when adults interfere too much in the lives of children, what we’re actually teaching them is that they are not capable of achieving great things on their own, that hard work is overrated, that morality is flexible and inconsequential and that their parents don’t believe in them.
Some of those parents thought that guaranteed admission to an Ivy League school was worth up to $6.5 million. I would counter that letting children develop grit, character, determination, a realistic measure of self, standards for honesty and perseverance is priceless.
We need to give our children the chance to fail and all children should have the chance to succeed.
But if compromising morality, robbing other children of their earned opportunities and the knowledge that you’re actually setting your own child up for failure by messing with their lives isn’t enough to motivate you to back off, then I would add that the parents involved in the admission scandal reminded me of another saying that I teach my children: “Be sure your sins will find you out.”
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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.
