In a front page story in the Focus section on last Sunday's (March 31) Boston Globe, there was an article entitled "Self esteem self defeating?" The subtitle was: "Unless children earn it, it may prove destructive." Quoting some of the leading critics of what they call the "self-esteem movement," the critic states: "while no one denies that feelings of self-worth can be important, academics and others are reaching the conclusion that it has been overvalued, has pushed to the exclusion of education and development that relate more directly to successful lives - and, in fact, even contain a destructive dimension. For self-esteem to be of true value, they say, it must be earned."
Yup, that's what they say. You are not allowed to feel good about yourself unless you earn it! Be a winner and you are allowed to like yourself. Be a loser and you are hereby condemned to dwell in self-loathing and self-recrimination.
I don't know what is scarier; that there are more people than I care to count who have no self-esteem and live self-destructive lives, or that there are "serious" writers and thinkers who actually believe that self-esteem must be "earned" or become self-destructive. Where do "they" come from? Do "they" really believe we can improve the motivation and confidence of young people by preaching the "win and you can feel good" philosophy.
I wish "they" could have stood beside me a month ago at Clark University when I tried to comfort a grieving father whose son had killed himself. The son felt his grades were not good enough and therefore he was a failure. Maybe this student took the "win and you can feel good" philosophy seriously and decided since he was not a winner, but a loser, suicide was the logical course. Tell that to his father who simply loved him for being his son.
Or maybe "they" should have stood in my kitchen a few weeks ago while I watched my wife hold my daughter as she sobbed over failing to get accepted by the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her portfolio was just not good enough for the high standards at FIT. So what would "they" have me do; not tell her that despite failing to get in FIT we loved her and she was a great kid? Should I have told her that she should feel rejected and no good because she didn't make the grade because one panel at one school made a judgment not in her favor?
What "they" apparently have not read is the book of Genesis which tells us that we are all, winners and losers, created in God's image. That truth alone allows us all the self-esteem we deserve. "They" also should have read Paul's letter to the Corinthians, where Paul argues;
"For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters; not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish to shame the wise; God chose what was weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce the nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God."
Paul is right. I will side with those despised and weak and foolish who are loved by God and who can love themselves because they are loved by God and by others. Self-esteem is not a reward for being good, or winning the game, or being the brightest in the class. Self-esteem comes from knowing God made you a person of worth and that you are and always will be a person of self-worth because of divine creation. "They" just don't get it.