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Competition bleeds innocence

editorial cartoon by Kevin Johnstone
editorial cartoon by Kevin Johnstone

Somewhere in America tonight, a 7-year-old boy is pitching his first little league game. As he prepares to throw the ball, with his brand new sneakers and bright red baseball cap cocked at an uneven angle on his head, he experiences a flutter of nerves, but he is hardly as nervous as his father.

Sitting in the stands, his dad does not cheer him on, but watches with a pressured silence. This is the game that will prove to him that his son is the best, therefore making him the best. In his mind, there is no room for error. This is no game, it is a competition to prove his manhood through his son. To win is to triumph. To lose, devastation.

Only a few miles away, a 9-year-old girl prepares for a gymnastics meet. Her mother ties her hair back with a ribbon, and remembers her own days of grade-school gymnastics. She was clumsy and awkward, too tall and chubby to compete seriously, but her daughter has given her a second chance at those 15 minutes of fame. So, she has pushed the girl into the sport, monitoring her daughter’s diet and exercise patterns religiously, constantly reminding her that a slight weight gain or a lapse in training can result in failure to compete at the Olympic level.

For the girl, however, something much bigger than a gold medal is at stake. If she loses the meet tonight, she loses a good measure of her mother’s respect.

For these two youngsters and countless others like them, childhood competition, usually considered a playful method of developing friendships and motor skills, has taken on a sordid aspect. To these children, there is no parental love without competitive success.

While these youngsters are usually considered rich in abilities, they are being robbed of something much more valuable than a gold medal, plaque or trophy. They are being robbed of their childhood.

Last week, this loss of childhood was made frighteningly apparent by Jessica Dubroff, a spunky 7-year-old who loved french fries, pony rides and airplanes.

On her sixth birthday, Jessica’s father took her to the airport, where she was so fascinated by the planes that she made Lloyd Dubroff promise her flying lessons. Her doting father granted her wish. By the beginning of April, Jessica, who was nine years shy of legally obtaining a pilot’s license, had logged 35 hours of flight time.

At first, Jessica was content continuing her flight lessons with the sole intent of gaining more and more experience. But Lloyd Dubroff had other ideas. He had been reading about the other youngsters who had flown cross-country and he was determined that his daughter should become the youngest pilot to fly the 7,000-mile route. With no regards to the fact that the Guinness Book of World Records had eliminated the “youngest pilot” category from its almanac in 1991 for safety reasons, and with no thought of her meager flight experience, he approached Jessica with the idea. Eager to please her father at any cost, she agreed to fly cross-country.

Last Thursday, Jessica took off from the tiny airport in Half Moon Bay, Calif., accompanied by Lloyd and flight instructor Joe Reid. It was a harder flight than she expected. The weather on the landing strip in Cheyenne, Wyo., was icy, and Jessica got only three hours’ sleep. But, mindful of his goal to have a record-setting daughter, Lloyd pushed her to take off early the next morning with hopes of landing in Ft. Wayne, Ind., that night. They never made it. Only minutes after take-off, the plane crashed, killing all those aboard, and barely missing civilians on the ground in Cheyenne.

Jessica will never again eat french fries or groom her horse. She will never earn her pilot’s license. In her attempt to fly cross-country, Jessica lost her life. She had already lost her childhood.

She was not old enough to make the decision to drink or smoke, but she was pushed by her parents to follow a strict vegetarian diet. She was just reaching the age where lasting friendships are formed, but her mother insisted that she be home-taught, safe from the influences of other children. She was too young to drive a car and too short to ride a roller coaster, but she was pushed by her father to fly a plane cross-country. She was considered legally too immature to vote, marry or sit on a jury, yet she was entrusted with making landing and take-off decisions usually reserved for seasoned pilots.

In her parents’ rush to turn Jessica into a little adult, they forgot that she was still a little girl.

Of course, the little league player will survive his trip to the mound tonight and, regardless of whether she wins, the gymnast will probably walk away from her competition physically unscathed. But, in a sense, these children have also lost their lives.

Childhood is a time when individuals form their personalities and beliefs through imagination and social interaction. But when parents intervene, turning their children into tools through which they can live their own dreams, and turning childhood into a contest for their own self worth, the children ultimately lose.

When parents follow the misguided lead of Lloyd Dubroff and others, and encourage their children to take innocent pastimes to the level of cutthroat competition, they are taking the fun and exploration out of childhood. The ultimate reward for games and hobbies becomes not self-confidence or a polished trophy, but parental love and support, which should be given freely regardless of a child’s performance.

Perhaps if Dubroff had let his daughter explore an innocent love of flight at her own pace, without the added pressure of competition, they would both be alive today. Instead, the country is mourning the death of a young girl, and her innocence.

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Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.

Kevin Johnstone
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