Oh No, Not That Sign

I really hope she was just playing at being that hard.

Oh my.

A mother on TV (American Ninja Warrior: Kids Edition) was holding a sign like this while cheering on her child:

Ugh.

Really, Becky?

Did you honestly make that sign at home with a marker and glitter in front of your child and bring it to the event in which they were competing?

We Can Figure Out the Why

You probably meant well. You thought you were telling the world that you are raising a champion by making your kid hard like a precious rock. And hugs don’t make diamonds — you are right about that.

But your kid is not a pocket of carbon atoms stuck 3 million years ago in the Earth’s crust. They’re a human … and they need you to be a human.

They need a parent to hug them and model kindness and support … because hugs make something super important.

Kind humans.

Deprive your kid of hugs and love and human connection and you create adults who struggle with kindness and compassion — and we’re already seeing too much of that in the U.S. right now.

There’s a Better Way

Tear up your sign, Mom. Your kid’s not going to make you rich off Ninja Warrior. They’re going to fall from rings into the water and need a hug. Give them one. Or 100. Lose track because you hugged your kids so much in this lifetime.

That’s what the rest of us do.

Because hugs might be the best thing we have going as humans.

Sprinkle them everywhere — especially in your home.

This is our best hope. This is the way we thrive.

We all should be giving more hugs — because they might be what actually saves us.

As the poet Maggie Smith once wrote: “We could make this place beautiful.”

So let’s do that — for our kids and for each other.

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Bonus read: