Cape Town - Today, my son's school will be holding its annual sports day.
Houses will shout for their runners, teachers will bustle, tea will be sold. Parents will set up umbrellas and a good time will be had by all.
Except that not everybody will have a good time.
The plump girl who comes humiliatingly last will, I am certain, not go home feeling good about herself.
The children in the losing house will wonder why all their "spirit" made no difference.
The parents of the losing children will feel just a tiny bit of rage (or maybe quite a lot) towards the smug ones whose children are standing on the winner's platform.
As always, I will be suffering quietly with the non-achievers, remembering my own years of disappointment and hurt, coming in last time after time.
Doomed by my own sporting ineptitude to the role of perpetual spectator, I've spent years on the sidelines pondering what purpose is served by competitive sporting events.
From what I can tell, at the rarified levels of national sporting teams, the point is to represent your country, to symbolise it in some way. The same goes, in a smaller way, for regional and provincial teams. And at school level, the team represents the pride of the school.
I'm told by people who think sport is important that a bigger social agenda is to teach the value of teamwork, and of sportsmanship.
There's no denying that all that is valuable, and worth doing. And I don't begrudge the genetically blessed their moment in the sporting sun - the world is full of have and have nots, and I have my own talents.
What I do think with we could dispense with though is the lies we tell children about all this.
My son summed it up eloquently after his "dismal failure" (his own accurate words) at the high jump. "Could they all just stop telling me that it doesn't matter as long as I did my best?" he demanded over the supper table.
And he's right. The platitudes offered to losers are not helpful.
Let's just be honest: The losers were not good enough. Their best was insufficient. And it does matter. Otherwise why was a competition being held in the first place?
So this year, I am dispensing with the platitudes. I'll be telling him to get through the day as best he can, and to remember that he has many talents and qualities that may in years to come be more important than the simple ability to run fast.
IOL
@reneemoodie