Perfection

"Come here, son. Let me tell you a secret."

"What, Daddy?"

"Look ... perfect attendance ... it's not that important."

I know, I know. I'm a horrible example to my first-grade son.

But before you call the Department of Social Services on me, consider this:

My first-born son brought home his first report card today. Straight "E's." That's apparently the grades they give in first grade in South Carolina. "E" for excellent, "S" for satisfactory and "U" for unsatisfactory. Also on the report they show the percentages and how that equates to an A-F scale.

(Which leaves me to wonder: Why do we always skip the E on the A-F scale in high school and college? And why, in first grade, out of all the letters to use as a substitute to symbolize the best performance, do we pick the one that is just barely a step up from the symbol you'll eventually use for failing?).

Looking at the percentages written on his report card, he made straight A's.

Easily. And that means "Distinguished Honor Roll."

So, yeah, I'm saying my kid is smart. Will I put the bumper sticker on my car? Let's just say I hope they don't give them out.

But a perfect attendee, he is not. If there's an award for "Perfect Attendance" to be won, he wonders why he failed to get it.

That's because he's a winner. Meaning, even if he doesn't win, he wants to win. Go watch "Little Miss Sunshine" for more on that.

I felt the need to point out to him my philosophy on perfect attendance awards because of the invitation that come home welcoming parents to come to an awards program to see their children be recognized for various awards. One of the awards is perfect attendance.

He has won every award a first-grader can win. He leads in advanced reading over every student at the school in his grade level -- and some in higher grade levels.

Ask him to subtract 24 minus 9 and you get an answer within five seconds, without paper or counting fingers, but with spacial reasoning. Ask him to sing and he understands staying in key. He can draw just about anything with a healthy mixture of creativity and context. Put a basketball in his hands in gym class and he'll dribble the full length of the court and back with his right arm behind his back.

So where does that leave the two of us, sitting at the dinner table looking over a report card?

I guess I just don't understand giving an award for something that takes little more effort than simply showing up, staying lucky enough not to get sick and hoping you don't get counted absent when you really were there.

You award perfection, and nothing less. As if we should somehow strive for perfection.

He missed two days. He was throwing up into a mixing bowl for both of those days.

"I didn't get perfect attendance because I was sick. But I wasn't really that sick."

Maybe it's my fault. Maybe it's my wife's fault. Maybe it's the dog's fault. Maybe it's genetics. But he's trying, in some way, to blame himself for not succeeding. He was very, very sick. Somehow, he thinks he shouldn't have been.

So, I tell him that perfect attendance isn't important. That when you're sick, you don't have to go to school. That when you're home, you're home -- and you don't owe anyone out there anything when you're home.

Sure, this type of award might compel children to actually have their parents take them to school because they don't want to screw up a perfect attendance certificate. But what does this teach them?

What is great about America is our desire to succeed, and it's also one of our failings. We have taught ourselves that success equates to how hard we're willing to work for the sake of working. And we've become so obsessed with achieving that success -- and the money that comes with it -- that we forget what success really is.

Win this award or that trophy or whatever. Be a winner of things. Or don't. Some of us want that, some of us don't.

Everybody's a freakin' snowflake, OK?

But whatever might drive us, we shouldn't go to school when we feel like crap.

So, I've decided to reward him for his hard work and genuine desire to make something of himself.

We will go to the Monster Jam show on Friday night and watch some Monster Trucks with some big damn tires crush shit all to hell.

And if the trucks were crushing shit in the middle of the school day, I'd keep him out of school and write him an excuse: "Please forgive my son's absence. He was sick. Of school."