Last week while bush-hogging our pasture I spent several hours thinking about how to best educate our 5-year-old son to give him a leg up on life. Each time I looped back toward the house and saw him pedaling his John Deere tractor around the yard, I tried to sort through some of the parenting advice given to my generation.

As if we’re all vying for some little competitive edge that can throw our child over the top, today’s parents are expected to schedule their children through an intense course of educational, social and athletic activities at increasingly younger ages to keep them from getting behind.

It’s hard not to feel panicked when you find out there’s some advantage you haven’t given your child yet.

“If he doesn’t have a leap pad and sleep to Mozart, he won’t be ready for pre-school. If he doesn’t go to pre-school, he won’t be ready for kindergarten, and if he’s not already speaking Spanish, pecking on a computer and playing an instrument by kindergarten …”

This doesn’t just happen with education. The same pressures to perform earlier and earlier are applied to sports. The story of Tiger Woods’ father taking him to the driving range at the age of 4 is imprinted into the American psyche so much that very few kids just play backyard sports for fun anymore. Play has become serious business.

“If he’s not in organized sports by the time he’s 5, he’ll be behind the rest of his life,” I’m told.

But I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t buying into a false premise that early acceleration in education or athletics translates into happiness later in life. America’s psychiatric offices are full of wealthy, successful and depressed people who quickly scaled the career ladder only to find emptiness on the top rung.

I’ve spent my adult life with educated and highly motivated people, and I love the thrill of competition and the satisfaction of accomplishment.

But all too often, those who climb the fastest and the highest by placing their educations or careers ahead of their families end up miserable in the end. The one with the highest GPA, the most impressive resumé, the biggest bank account or the best batting average doesn’t always win. It seems happiness takes more than just educational or athletic prowess.

It’s natural for conscientious parents to want to give their children the best education they can afford and help them to achieve their full potential. It’s normal for us to want to brag on our children, and it’s OK for us to try to teach them to count by twos or ride a bike before the rest of their peers.

But real success is more than a string of early milestones or a wall full of plaques. Some of the most important things in a child’s life won’t ever show up on a college application. Cutting up around the dinner table, tubing at the lake, and tickling on Mommy and Daddy’s bed are every bit as important as phonics or computer literacy.

In what will seem like just a few months, my little boy will be grown with a family of his own and he won’t be asking me to pillow fight or run through the sprinkler. Perhaps one of the greatest lessons we can learn together right now about life is how to slow down long enough to enjoy it.



Craig Ziemba is a military pilot who lives in Meridian. His second book, “Give War a Chance,” is

available at Meridian Bible

Bookstore locations.