I Let My Son Win Once

And I don’t feel bad about it.  My philosophy with kids has been that if they win, they have earned it.  So I don’t let them win at ping pong, tennis, uno, basketball, rock paper scissors, nothing. For nearly 12 years I have been relentlessly competitive.  All for the kids’ own good, of course.

Yesterday afternoon, that changed.  Christian is quite a good ping pong player; every time we play, he gets 2 points head and often keeps the lead for a while.  He has been unable so far to seal the deal.  So we played once.  I won.  I wanted a rematch. 

“No, dad.   You’re just going to win!”

“I’ll play left-handed.  And you’ll win, I promise.”

“No, you’ll win anyway.  You always win.”

“I’m right handed, buddy.  You’ll beat me.”  The look on his regretful face told me he was relenting.  “You wanna serve first?”

I tossed him the ball, and he took it.  With a hint of sarcasm in his voice, he took the ball.  “I don’t know why I’m doing this.”  And he served.

And he got ahead, and then I got ahead, and then he got ahead.  And then I realized that I could control the ball well enough to win.  It was 12-12.  And I decided to throw the game.  Even then, it took a while for him to build a 5 point lead.  And then I settled in for the loss.  And I won 2 points by accident.  And then he took the game, 21-17. 

He was happy – I was happy.  He beat me.  I was proud of myself.  For losing.  And being ok with it.   Now, posting this is self-congratulatory.  I get that.  And egotistical.  I get that.  But I still feel good about it.  And I won’t tell anybody, now that the whole world could find out if they cared.