When I was growing up, my sister and I used to occupy our long, hot Phoenix summers with epically fierce Monopoly battles. (Remember, this was back in the days before Netflix—and, in our area at least, before cable. There were only four channels to choose from, and believe me, there are only so many times you can watch “Pets on Parade.”) And so we played Monopoly. For hours. Because with only two people, a Monopoly game takes forever—especially when those two people fight over every single piece of property like they were MacArthur in the Philippines. (“Don’t worry, Oriental Avenue: I will return for you!”)
Winning one of those games of Monopoly was the best feeling in the world: the joy of watching your money pile up, the pride you felt as your bustling suburban sprawl of houses was finally replaced with towering hotels, the sheer thrill of absolute power as you set the terms for every new deal (“I’ll give you two hundred bucks for your railroads and utilities—take it or leave it.”) Being on top in a game of Monopoly is probable the closest thing most people get to playing God: you, and you alone, get to bless or curse people, depending on your mood and their level of obsequiousness. “I’ll ignore the fact that you just landed on Pennsylvania with three houses if you promise to call me ‘Your Highness’ for the rest of the day. Oh, and go get me a grape popsicle.”
Conversely, losing a game of Monopoly was the worst. The terror of watching your money pile dwindle, the desperation as you sold off first your houses, then the property itself. The doubt that crept in about your previously unquestioned judgement. ( “Why did I waste all of that money on Boardwalk and Park Place? No one ever lands there!”) It was pure bitterness, and every Monopoly defeat tasted like ashes in your mouth. (Ashes, and perhaps a little bit of colored paper: neither my sister nor I were above such pettiness as chewing up and spitting the last of our money at the other player; when people outside our family played Monopoly with us we usually had to make up some story about the cat getting a hold of the money to explain its bedraggled state.)
Actually, when I write it all down like this, the whole thing seems pretty awful. And yet, I am convinced that it was one of the most valuable parts of my childhood. Why? Because it taught me how to lose. Not how to lose graciously. (See: Money, Chewing Up and Spitting Out, Above). And not how to lose willingly, but simply that the awful, terrible experience of losing was a real thing—real, and survivable.
You might be thinking that this is a lesson everyone learns; that unless you lead some kind of a charmed life (like, say, being born into the Bush family), learning how to lose is unavoidable. And you’d be right: it is. The difference, however, is that I learned how to lose when it was still (slightly) acceptable for me to throw myself on the ground about it and roll around and gnash my teeth; with today’s kids, I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore. After all, if you grow up in a culture where everyone gets a trophy just for showing up, what do you really learn about losing?
It might seem cruel to put our children through the agony of defeat when they are so young, and therefore so vulnerable (and so vocal about), but I think that it is crueler by far to make them wait until semi-adulthood to find out that they’re actually not that good at soccer.
Or that buying Boardwalk and Park Place is always a sucker’s bet.