Every Girl's a Prom Queen

The Boston Herald

How I hate contests. I hate them because they divide people into winners and losers and there are always more losers than winners, more people walking away with their heads bowed than with their heads held high.

Maybe I'd feel differently if I had been the first kid always picked for a team. But from Red Rover to kickball to softball, I never was. I was never the last either, but I always identified with the person left standing alone, reluctantly 'chosen' when there was no longer any choice.

There are so many senseless contests, beginning in childhood, contests for spelling, math, art, writing. Even Simon Says is a contest. 'Sit down. You did it wrong. You're out!' Why do we encourage these games? Why do we insist upon turning everything into a competition? The only thing this does is make losers of most of the population.

A Halloween parade, a great idea in itself, is ruined by a contest at the end. Hundreds of little kids get dressed up, march around a school or down a street and they all feel like stars. And then, one child is chosen from all the others, labeled The Best, and everyone else feels less than best, and infinitely less than they felt just minutes before.

The competitions get tougher and meaner as life goes on. There's no escaping them in sports Most valuable player, rookie of the year, best at bat. But must it start so young?

I remember when my son started playing Little League. It wasn't enough to be on a team, to play in every game, to do the best. Every little boy prayed to be picked for the All-Stars. It was the goal. It didn't matter that most of these kids weren't All-Star material. They didn't know this. They didn't know they had limitations until somebody came along and told them they weren't good enough.

Competition's part of academics, too. There are science projects and writing contests and SAT's and overall 'bests' in all subjects. Yearbooks are full of cosmetic 'bests' Best dressed, best couple, best dancer, best sense of humor. It never ends.

I wish it didn't have to extend all the way to the senior prom, though. 'Little girl all the world will be yours tonight, my queen of the senior prom,' is a sweet, tender song, but singling out one girl and crowning her queen is cruel. Every girl's a queen the night of her prom.

They all spend weeks in search of a perfect dress. They spend a fortune on their dresses and on shoes to match and earrings and necklaces and clips for their hair, and then there's the prom ticket and their share of the limousine.

The Senior Prom is The Big Night. Emotionally and financially they invest more than they ever have in an evening they've dreamed about since they were little girls. When they stand before their mirrors dressed in their gowns, they know they have never looked lovelier.

This feeling lasts well into the night. They pose before cameras. They joke. They smile. They're happy. Through dinner, through a half dozen dances, every girl feels special, hopeful, almost beautiful.

Then the music stops and the contest begins. Names are called, first for the queen's court, and when their name isn't announced, no matter how slim the chance, no matter how unlikely the possibility, they think that maybe, just maybe, they will be chosen queen.

They hope for it. They wish for it. 

And when they are not chosen, when someone else is and she stands in center stage being feted and crowned, disappointment sticks in their throats like cotton. It's impossible to say it doesn't matter. It's impossible to pretend that not being named queen means nothing at all. Because it does matter. It means far more than it should.

Why do this to young girls? Why turn a long-awaited evening into another needless defeat?

There's no reason for it. It's a pointless competition that causes far more hurt than joy.