Olympic Dreams, Perfectionism, and Parenting

Family Friday

Future Olympic gold medalist!  Few parental fantasies of children's future glory carry quite as much emotional weight.  Now that we parents have aged past such athletic endeavors ourselves, it's natural for the current Olympic fever to infect even the most level-headed parent.  As Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post noted, nothing drums up tears among us moms and dads more than the cheering parents in the stands waving their signs. 

I may represent the minority here, but I frequently cringe while watching the Olympics, especially with my kids.  And it's not the events, athletes, or cheering parents that bother me – it's the snide, often catty commentary, combined with an unhealthy dose of schadenfreude.  

Here you have some of the world's most amazing athletes performing almost unbelievable feats, yet the commentating focuses on tiny, nearly invisible errors.

"That did it – he lost the gold right there!"

"Oh no!  That triple toe loop became a double!  She just didn't bring it tonight, did she!" 

"I'm not sure what those costumes add, besides looking ridiculous."

"Oopsy-daisy!  Wow, what a catastrophe!"

"Look at the angle of that ankle there – he is out of the running for the gold now, and he'll be lucky to even make the top twelve."

"How devastating – to have trained for all those years, only to turn in a performance like that!"
and the worst interview question of all:

"How do you feel, now that you've completely lost any hope for a medal?" (And yes, I could just mute the commentary, but then I'd have no idea what was going on).

I get it, I get it: the high level of athleticism itself makes these tiny criticisms matter.   And I'm not suggesting that commentators do anything differently – their job involves sharing their expertise by pointing out distinctions among champions, not necessarily fostering general appreciation of the talent involved. 

However, I can consciously choose not to imitate their style.  While watching ski jumping the other night, I pointed out to my awe-struck eight-year-old that all the skiers are very talented, hypercritical comments aside.

With my son in particular, I want to nip the quest for "perfect" in the bud.  I've known too many people in athletics, academics, and the arts, who flamed out in their endless pursuit of perfection, losing all intrinsic love of the field.  And my son has already shown signs of excessive self-criticism and other perfectionistic tendencies.  

After watching more corkscrewing skiers, my son, sounding eerily like the commentator, prissily announced: "His form was all wrong – he completely over-rotated!"  When I glanced over at him, he laughed and said "Gotcha!" Yes!  He gets it! 

by Jenny Douglas Vidas

Comments

[Meagan]

I struggle with the same thing. My perspective was a little different...trying to understand why we (the fans) want them to be perfect. http://justforthesportofit.blogspot.com/ is the blog post I wrote about it.

[Petula]

Jenny, Thanks for mentioning the column and you made a terrific point. Funny, we had some of the same issues in our house watching the Olympics. I was doing the reverse commentary, telling my kids how cool it was that they could do these things and reminding them that the athletes had to do lots and lots and lots of practicing and they probably fell down a LOT when they were little before they could get it right!(On the heels of a quitting streak by my older one)
My husband was getting so furious at the commentators too. Then I reminded him of what he said watching the Superbowl.
Gotcha!
-Petula