Estimated reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

When Katie first started studying violin, at age seven, her teacher announced that there would be a prize for the first three students to finish the exercises in their Master Theory workbooks. When she turned hers in, completed, Mrs. H. announced to the class that she had won Second Place. The prizes would be given out at the end of the year concert, in front of all the students, parents, and guests. Katie was thrilled.

The big day came. There was a moment of comic relief before the concert started, when Katie turned around and yelled back to me, “I broke my G-string!”  The concert went beautifully; the kids did an amazing job. Then, the awards were announced. And when they called out Second Place for Master Theory, it wasn’t Katie’s name they called. Mrs. H. had made a mistake – either in telling Katie that she had been second to finish, or in writing up the awards. Perhaps she forgot who was second and who was third. Katie was given Third Place. She was in tears. My heart ached for her.

Understand this: Katie would have been just as thrilled to receive Third Place. She would have been content to receive no award at all. But for the teacher to have told her, and her class, that she had earned Second Place, and to have it snatched away from her publicly like that, after she’d proudly told everyone she’d be receiving an award, was just wrong. You don’t do that to a kid.

Some might argue that it’s good for kids to learn, early on, that adults can’t always be trusted and that “life isn’t always fair.” I don’t see why it’s always kids and honorable people who have to compromise and accept injustice from others, and I don’t think it’s a good life lesson. It’s a lesson that teaches children to grab the brass ring out of the weaker child’s hands. It’s a lesson that says, “Adults aren’t trustworthy, why should I be?” It’s a lesson that whispers, “Promises are meaningless, and meant to be broken.” It’s a lesson that goes against all the other ethical principles society expects children to absorb and live by, without giving anything in return.

I spoke to the teacher after Katie’s concert and told her how I felt. Katie didn’t want me to; she just wanted to go home and be done with it. I had hoped for an explanation – I expected an apology to my child for what I presumed was an honest mistake. An adult apologizing to a child is a powerful lesson, that no one is too big or too important to admit when they’ve done wrong, and to say they’re sorry. There was no undoing what was done, but a sincere apology – to Katie, not to me – would have helped to mitigate the damage done. Instead, the teacher snarked at me: “You’re not helping your child to accept the situation by complaining to me about it.” I was livid.

Fortunately, we found better teachers over the years – people who genuinely liked children and went out of their way to be fair and kind. But this experience taught ME something – I can hold a grudge, when someone hurts my child. And I never again naively assumed that most adults, at least those with children of their own, would behave ethically and compassionately towards my children.

Good Karma

I used to work for an airline. Flying standby, it’s hard to get two seats together, even when flying with a four-year-old. Katie and I often flew to visit my grandmother, in Ohio. I couldn’t ask another passenger to move, but some were kind enough to do so voluntarily. On our last two flights – returning from Alaska, and flying to Los Angeles yesterday for our family reunion, Katie volunteered to switch seats for people flying together. The flight attendant would have given her a free drink, had she been 21. Instead, I jokingly suggested an extra piece of chocolate from one of the lunch trays.

“Don’t remind her,” mouthed Katie from the row ahead of me. “Don’t say anything.” She knows I’m a mama tiger, and sometimes that embarrasses her. But a piece of chocolate is just a piece of chocolate, and I figure she’s just returning the Karmic goodness, helping others traveling together, now that she’s an adult.

It took a while, but the flight attendant didn’t forget her promise. She made a special trip back to give Katie the chocolate, after the meal trays were taken up. It’s a very small thing, but each time I see someone honoring a commitment to a kid – even a grown up kid – it restores a little bit of my faith in humanity.