Why I want my little boy to fail.

I worked in the public school system for five years. During that time, I learned several important lessons:

• Lunchroom food sucks (but if you get in good with the lunchroom ladies…they’ll hook you up).
• Schools are dirty and kids are gross…I wash my hands until they’re cracked and chapped.
• Use the women’s faculty bathroom…it is always cleaner.
• Parents don’t want their children to fail.

Let’s talk about that last one: I want my little boy to grow up knowing some success and some failure. I want him to be familiar with achievement and disappointment. I don’t want either of my kids to grow up in a bubble, never knowing struggles and never hearing the word “no”. I don’t want my five-year-old to be raised like so many kids I know, thinking that everyone gets a trophy. And I don’t want my daughter to be raised, expecting life to be handed to her on a silver platter. That’s not real life for most of us.

Failure is a great conversation starter. When handled with grace and truth, failure gives us a chance to face our own imperfections and forces us to engage vulnerability.

So how should we deal with failures?  What do we do about shortcomings? How do we respond when those we care about miss the mark? When our imperfections become public knowledge…then what?

“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.” Matthew 7:1-3

It starts by acknowledging your mistake. We are set free when we choose to admit that we don’t have it all together all the time. And when someone we care about recognizes their own shortcoming, give grace.

I once heard someone say, “If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.”