Be better than Ryan

Ryan, it turns out, is another 9-year-old boy who is slightly better than my friend’s son at tennis.

“You want to be better than Ryan at tennis?” My friend asked his son.

“Not just tennis. He’s also better than me at math and some other things.”

You have to respect the boy. His goal was direct and specific and measurable: Be better than Ryan. And in order to keep himself focused, he tacked up a reminder where he could see it every day.

Like a lot of parents, my friend and his wife weren’t quite sure where this competitive streak came from. Neither of them is particularly ambitious or driven. In fact, my friend’s attitude toward life and its challenges is so easygoing that it’s almost indistinguishable from laziness.

So, my friend and his wife did what modern, liberal parents are supposed to do: try to persuade their child not to try so hard. “We just want you to be the best you you can be,” they said. “Why not think about changing the sign to something like, ‘Be better than yesterday,’ or something? Why does it have to be Ryan-centric?”

There’s a Japanese concept called kaizen, they said. Continuous improvement. Why not just say to yourself each day, “Hey, I just want to be a little bit better today, for me, for myself?”

It didn’t work, of course. All they got was the same look children give parents at soccer games when the parents pretend that no one is really keeping score.

“What’s the score?” you can ask a parent, and what you’ll get is, “That’s really not the point. We’re all about the spirit of play and the joy of good sportsmanship. Both teams are really doing wonderfully.”

“What’s the score?” you can ask a child, and what you’ll get is, “4-1; we’re crushing them.”

As far as my friend’s son was concerned, the key driver to his day was “Be better than Ryan,” not “Really learn to feel good about myself” or “Be proud of my small achievements.” Ryan was his benchmark, and he wanted to beat it.

But what happens, my friend asked his determined son, when Ryan comes over here after school or for a sleepover? What if he sees that sign? What then?

His son assured him that he would remember to take the sign down before Ryan enters the house. And that was that. Modern, liberal parents, unlike many of their children, know when to quit. “Be Better Than Ryan” stayed up.

A few days ago, though, my friend’s son informed him that disaster had struck. Ryan had indeed come over to play after school, had seen the sign, and naturally had demanded to know what’s up.

“Were you embarrassed?” my friend asked.

“A little,” his son said.

“So, what did you do?” my friend asked.

“Well,” his son began matter-of-factly, “I told Ryan that I needed that sign to remind me to be better than him at tennis and math and stuff.”

In other words, he told the truth. He revealed to his friend that he didn’t feel as good at tennis or math or some other stuff as he was, that he intended to make up the difference, and that he thought about it every single day. He did what many grown-up people cannot do, which is to say, “I want to be better than that other person,” rather than, “That other person isn’t so good.”

“What did Ryan say?” my friend asked.

“He said OK but that now that he knows that, he’s going to try extra hard to stay better than me at tennis and math and stuff.”

“And then what happened?” his father asked.

“I don’t know,” his son said with a shrug. “We played Call of Duty and then had a pizza.”

My friend relayed this all to me with a kind of baffled expression, as if he was describing the astonishingly weird habits of some remote island tribe. It made me wonder if perhaps Ryan’s parents, also, no doubt, groovy and nurturing and liberal, were equally nonplussed by their driven and competitive son. Maybe all over the country, sweetly tolerant and passively loving parents are raising ambitious and relentless children.

Maybe, in other words, there’s hope.

Rob Long is a television writer and producer and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.