A child’s inability to compete in achievement culture can become a form of freedom

Evidence

But if I was honest, I also could see how, if I had a child who navigated the world with such ease, it would be nearly impossible to resist the temptation to live through them and try to win all the prizes our brutal economic order has to offer the few deemed merit-worthy. It was in that moment that I realized the special gift of having a child whose innate differences meant that he was never going to be able to compete in that race. By then, he was already on his own field, making his own rules—cool rules, ones that might lead to some very interesting places when he is older—but rules that he alone could decode. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 728

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how ‘failure to compete’ could be reclaimed as an actual off-ramp from achievement culture — but Klein handles it sentimentally rather than analytically.
• XREF: connects to: The girl’s rejection and nothingness can become the springboard to freedom