Claim your medal, Mamas. Your children are watching.
Last month, my daughter’s school choir got the opportunity to sing the National Anthem to kick off a local fun run. Since we had to be there for the start of the race anyway, and our schedule was otherwise magically clear that morning (with 3 kids, that is a miracle!), I signed myself up to run.
Fast forward to race morning. We arrive early so that she can warm up with her choir. The run had been revamped that year – new location, different organizers, and the crowd size was small. Like, we’re talking 69 participants total.
So, I lined up at the starting line, put in my headphones, pushed play on my “Pump Up The Jam” playlist, and decided to just run as fast as I felt like, just to see what could happen.
The race went fine.
I crossed the finish line and with anticipation stopped my watch and checked my time … decent! It was my fastest 5K since rehabbing from an injury the previous fall, but nothing spectacular. I met my cheering section (aka my husband), and my daughter happily retrieved my finisher’s medal and free snacks.
As I stretched out and drank some water, I heard the announcer say that medals would be presented after the kids’ 100-meter dash. Our daughter wasn’t participating in it, and I doubted there were any awards in my future, so we debated leaving. But, curiosity got the better of me, and I had to know, so I pulled up the race results on my phone to see where I landed.
I found my name, and to my great surprise, saw that I had finished in the top 20. Once I clicked on my name, I was even more shocked to see that I had finished 4th out of all females. Not only that, but I had finished 3rd out of all females in the 40-49 category. Whaaaaaaaaat??? This was not the run of my life, but I guess given the lower participation rate, my odds of medaling had improved.
We waited. The time came. To my even greater shock, I was announced as the FIRST place finisher in the female 40-49 category. I walked up, got my medal, and my daughter insisted I put it on. Friends who were there congratulated me, and I kept waving it off, saying “I only medaled because of how few people were here.”
After the race, we headed straight to my youngest’s soccer game, so I arrived still in my running gear and began to get peppered with “congratulations” from my fellow soccer parents (I had completely forgotten to take off my race bib and medal). Again, I began deflecting “it’s only because there was hardly anyone running.”
Another mom stopped me mid-deflection, “don’t sell yourself short – you showed up, you ran, it doesn’t matter who wasn’t there, you earned your medal!”
She was 100% right. Too often as moms, as women, we are conditioned to be demure, to try and shift credit to others, to downplay our successes. Sometimes we even feel embarrassed by the attention!
This isn’t what I want for my daughter. For your daughter. I don’t want them to think it’s impolite to take the credit for their accomplishments. I don’t want my daughter growing up apologizing for winning. We need to show them how you can be both proud and humble.
So, don’t just accept the medal, the award, the prize, the acknowledgement. Claim it. Claim it without caveats. Sure, you should give credit to your supporting cast when and where it’s due, but do not dare downplay your own accomplishment. Don’t apologize for winning. Put the medal around your neck and wear it proudly. You earned it.
