Hungry, Hungry Hippos

Sorry about all of the politics/political theory from Thursday. I seem to be writing two different blogs: one political, one personal.

A few weeks ago, I brought home a new game for the kids: Hungry, Hungry Hippos by Hasbro. I thought it would be a good way to teach counting, fair play, rule following, and alliteration. I found it as true with parenting as I have with teaching: the lessons that we intend are rarely the lessons taught, and teaching any lesson involves learning one yourself.

My four-year old boy loved it. He had some difficulty operating his "Hippo" (it is not a well made game), but he persevered and was able to feed his "Hippo" quite a few marbles. He also had a problem with the concept of "winning". He was quite sure that taking turns winning was the proper course of action. So I tried to teach him a lesson.

After a few minutes, I realized that I should have done some more prep for my lesson. I realized that the popular wisdom held by our society is massively contradictory: winners are celebrated, venerated, and paraded as heroes; losers are not. At the same time, we are told that it doesn't matter whether we win or lose, it only matters how we play the game. We are supposed to give it our very best effort, regardless of the outcome. Somehow, playing well is supposed to make us feel good. Anyone who has ever played anything knows that it feels better to win than lose. My son is aware of that already.

I want my son to be content with a "best effort", but at the same time I don't want him to become a "loser". Almost every team I have ever been a part of has lost. I don't mean we lost a few games here and there; I mean we mercy-rule lost; I mean our only victories were often earned when the other team failed to show up. It starts to work on you, the continual losing.

So I found that not only is our society conflicted, I am. I find it hard to rationalize competitive enterprise with a life of Christian service. To begin with, why would I want to elevate myself above another? Does this bring me closer to heart of Christ? Does it, in some way, glory God to use the gifts that God has given to defeat a fellow human being? At the same time, some of the best times of fellowship I have ever had have come while gaming. Does that make it okay? I don't know.

So what did I do about the doubly-hungry hippos? I feed my son all of the well-worn cliches that the world teaches us while we competed to feed our hippos as many marbles as possible. He will have to sort it out later. I think he knows at least that you can't take turns winning. He has tasted the thrill of victory and the sting of defeat.

My two-year old daughter, however, is another story. She also had difficulty operating the hippo. At first she solved this problem by manually holding the hippo's mouth open, but was informed that it was against the rules to do so. So she let down her hippo's mouth and began to scoot the marbles into the mouths of my and my son's hippos. I think my daughter knows something that I don't know; I just don't know what it is yet.

Peace