You might remember the participation ribbon you received in second grade for participating in track and field day or the one you received in fourth grade for participating in the spelling bee. You probably didn’t think anything of it at the time and might have thrown it away, simple as that. Little did you know that one day your participation ribbon would become a hot, new story about how entitled your generation is.
If you type participation ribbons into Google and happen to get past the first page of ads, you’ll see articles with the titles “Participation Ribbons Send a Dangerous Message” and “The Problem With Participation Ribbons.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa, how can such a small piece of ribbon cause any problems?
I thnk using “you” is OK here, Maggie. It seems sort of fitting when discussing entitlement. The lead itself doesn’t grab me, though.
What do you suppose people do with these ribbons? Do you suppose people keep them? Collect them? I think my wife put Kelly’s into a scrap book, at least some of them.
Go farther with the “problem” angle? A toxic collection of entitlement left over from childhood? Of is the problem what is left over in our psyches? The misguided idea that we all matter. How could we all have been fooled?