Centerfield

Too Much Congratulating?

Are we becoming addicted to ceremony? How much congratulating and commemorating can we all stomach. Can we go to the bathroom and tie our shoes without expecting a pat on the back? Allison Ijams Sargent wonders.

I fear that our children will wonder where their congratulatory pre-printed certificate is when they get their first job. Who will feed them cupcakes when they finish painting their apartment? Having a childhood spent watching adults tick off every tiny step forward with equal reverence is a dangerous business. It sets up kids to see everything as equally important. And when everything is important, nothing is important.

I'm not one to say this a huge deal. It's not. Most young adults are self-straightening when the bills hit the fan. But I think it's pretty fair to wonder whether some of the folks in charge of overpraising and ceremoniously overcongratulating kids are in fact kidding themselves, and maybe wasting time. Kids develop oppositional internal voices and their own culture of understanding the world that is independent of the gushing and unrealistic reports of adults in positions of authority. I wonder how many kids put up with the sheer volume of this stuff for the sake of their parents versus how many of them buy into incessant back-patting?

Maybe it's just me. I'm not a big believer in ceremony. It's most worthwhile when kept to a bare minimum, so as to signal, as the author above points out, those things which truly matter.