The Student Has Become the Master
It finally happened. My son finally bested me in a contest. I know this is a moment that happens in every father's life, but that does not diminish its significance for me one bit.
For most of my friends, this moment will involve some kind of sport. For some reason, many TV shows and movies illustrate this pinnacle moment using a game of 1 on 1 basketball.
The son finally grows large enough to push back as the father tries to keep him away from the basket. The child has also become faster, more agile and has more stamina than his tired, broken down old pop. The man gasps for air as he sees a younger version of himself blow by him to the basket 11 times in a row. Many times, the scene ends with the dad hanging his head while his son throws his arms in the air.
But that's never going to happen to me. I honestly have absolutely no fear of my son ever beating me in basketball. Is this because I played Division I basketball and then finished my basketball career playing professional basketball overseas? Oh my gosh no! I am terrible at basketball... but I still play quite often. My son has absolutely no interest in basketball (or any other sport) so a 1 on 1 basketball game will simply never happen.
Perhaps when I'm 80 and I look back on my life, I may feel like I missed out on that experience. I will invite my 56 year old son over for a quick game to 11. We will hobble around the court and...
I will kick his young whipper snapper butt!
Ok, that is not going to happen. But I will never feel like I missed out, because it happened today. My son defeated me in something we both actually care about.
Today my 11 year old son defeated me in chess.
A few hours ago, my son proudly extended his hand, looked across the table and said, "Check mate dad." I took his hand, shook it and smiled. I wasn't upset. I wasn't ashamed. I didn't feel "over the hill". I felt proud.
Extremely proud.
As I held his hand, I found myself hoping that this would be the first of many times my son will prove he is better than me.
In fact, I hope both of my children are better than me in every way. I want them to be smarter, funnier, healthier, kinder, stronger, more caring, and happier than I ever was. I want them to be more successful in their work and their personal lives. I want them to have better marriages ... Ok that's just crazy. My wife is simply the best so I will just have to hope for a tie in this area.
There is only one contest I care about winning. The only thing I want to "win" is being the best dad I can be to them. Hopefully this won't be a problem, because I'm the only one who gets to compete in that contest. It is the most important game of solitaire anyone could ever play. There is only one way I can win this game...
If my kids grow up to be better than me, I have won.
Anything less is a loss.
Even though my son has bested me in chess, there are still a few more tricks up this old man's sleeve. I still have a lot to teach him. But for now, I am going to let him ride on the wave of satisfaction derived from knowing he beat his dad... this time. Tomorrow, I'm telling him we are going to spice up our chess games a little. I can't wait to see his face when I introduce him to...
Chess Boxing!!!!
Kidding.
Of course you must be proud! :)
I sure am. Thanks! He was really excited. I thought I had him too. I made one bad move and it was over.
As parent, one of my hope for life is to see my kids surpassing me :)
Amen!
Congrats to your son! What is he going to beat you at next? :D
Hopefully it will be...
rrhoooo I played that game over Xmas with my son! And I also played it when I was 6-7... I was amazed to see it was still existing ;)
I know! Some of the spaces that have been updated to be more modern are pretty funny.
great when that moment arrives and all those 'teaching' moments morph into a 'win' - for both of you. You as the master and your son as the student- the circle of life. Sounds like your son has the best teacher and will grow to be the best student- great achievement
Enjoy the chess boxing ...lol
I hope so... but parenting is definitely a marathon.
Very nice! Just as long as people don't see procreation and the possibility of a better self in their unborn children as their only purpose. To have a shot at making him better, you should first become better yourself. I enjoyed the read :)
Excellent point. It is very important not to try and make a child live the life of the parent. I don't want my children to succeed in order to validate myself as a person. I want them to succeed on their own for their own gratification. I just know I have a very important job of educating them properly so they can do that.
I love chess lol
we should play sometime ;)
Steem chess! That would be great!
Downvoted to reduce large self-voting SG reward that is being deceptively hidden by voting after first payout, especially when the ability to view 30 day trending posts was removed from the UI.
I consider this to be intentional abuse that is unfortunately being enabled by accounts owned by members of the development team in order to allow a favored few to scam rewards. It is sad to see that Steemit has come to this.
Hello, I can understand this initial response when taken out of context. I would like the opportunity to explain exactly why this was voted after payout. It was not intended to abuse the system or to scam anyone.
Because of the unique reward system of steemit, it has been difficult to find a way to be compensated for my work for steem guild in a way that seems fair to the entire community. I take fairness very seriously and have attempted to balance this with the need to be compensated for my time. The reason I joined steem guild was to help to be part of a “bandaid” that seemed to be required because of the way the reward curve is structured. I sincerely hope that this bandaid will no longer be required and there will be no need for artificial ways to help spread the rewards to many content creators. I genuinely want to help reward as many content creators as possible. I truly believe that will help the platform to grow.
Some influential stake holders thought this guild would help with user retention and needed people to perform this service. In exchange for performing this service, the stakeholders wanted to use the reward system that is in place: votes.
We will never know if the steem guild helped retain authors or not. I can’t prove a negative. I believe it has helped retention others can argue it has not. So I’d prefer to just stick to the issue of rewards.
Over the life of the guild, the number of authors has grown dramatically. So has the amount of time required to perform the tasks of steem guild. I must admit for a very brief period, my rewards matched this increase in time required. But then I stepped back and looked and said, “I have to cut back. I have to take less rewards.” What “less” meant did not get worked out instantly. I tried different things to cut back.I started by posting less often and asking for decreased voting power on my posts. I took those actions before there was any feedback from any community members.
When the community members did provide feedback, three factors were stressed most often:
At this same time, my posts began getting flagged for earning too much on a single post. Therefore, one option which would have been to just post once per week was taken off the table.
I cut back even more on my number of posts and asked for even lower voting power but this still left me on trending.
The reward method you mention was intended to address the three factors mentioned above. In addressing these factors, it also meant that I received much lower rewards than I would have if I simply lowered the voting power and stayed on trending. I even combined this method with posting less often. I tried this method in order to earn less, leave the trending page for other authors, and have less of an effect on curation. This was not a scam intended to unfairly benefit myself.
The reward system on steemit is unique. It is not like anything I have ever operated in. It is not “normal” to be rewarded in votes that affect so many other factors and people. If this were the real world, I would have simply said “I’ll take less money”. On steemit, “taking less vote based rewards” still left me on trending and affected curation. I assure you, if there were buttons that said “cap rewards” and “Not eligible for trending”, I would have clicked those in a heartbeat.
This was an attempt to respond to and be fair to the community. It was not an attempt to scam anyone.