He’s home from school now, this day when he was recognized by his teacher as Star Student, a lofty award, for his courtesy and help and kindness, and he hasn’t stopped grinning since he walked through the door.

It’s a badge of honor for this 5-year-old boy who has watched friends accept the award and wanted, desperately, to get it, too.

And he did, and it’s a victory of sorts, a validation in his little boy mind, so much a part of him today that when we talk about a family movie night for Family Time and his brothers start throwing out suggestions, he puffs out his chest and says, No! You don’t get to pick because you weren’t Star Student today.

He’s been doing it all afternoon, choosing what game they play together on the trampoline because he was Star Student, getting the biggest cookie because he was Star Student, asking to be excused from after-dinner chores because he was Star Student.

This time he looks at his daddy and me, as if we’ll agree. We hardly know what to say. Hardly know what to do.

I feel the annoyance clogging the back of my throat, though, because who is he to think he is better or more privileged or more special than all of his brothers just because of some award?

The annoyance almost hijacks my tongue, and then I remember that I was once him, too.

///

Elementary school, junior high, high school, I lived for those awards, because they validated who I was.

They made me forget my reality of fatherless, penniless girl and let me be someone important. Someone admired. Someone who could rise above.

My seventh grade year, when I’d been playing the clarinet for eighteen months, I played a scale for a chair test and missed a note. The boy who sat second chair played his scale perfectly while I sat in my seat, holding my breath, hoping, hoping, hoping he would miss two notes so he wouldn’t knock me from the top spot I’d held all this time.

The band director had us switch places, and I saw the whole world crumbling apart around me, because who was I now that I wasn’t on top?

I cried hysterically in the bathroom all through that next class period, because the world had ended.

It was the same with academics. I lived to be someone smarter, someone more talented, someone more important than that crowd of classmates, because I did not know then that I was great without one single accolade to prove it.

In high school every subject award went to me, because I worked hard to stay first in my class, to stay smart, because I believed I could lose smart the same way I could lose an award.

I lined all the awards up on my dresser at home, where I could see them every morning as I brushed my hair and put on makeup for school.

So I could remember who I was.

I let those pieces of wood and brass tell me who I was, and I let them lock me in chains that said I could not fail, ever, and I could not let someone else collect an award, ever, because failure and forfeit would tear my identity into tiny little, can’t-put-back-together pieces.

I still have those awards, packed into a bin somewhere. They are rusting now.

///

This morning my 8-year-old randomly said that in his more than two years of public school he has never been chosen a Star Student.

And just yesterday I’d gotten an e-mail from his kindergarten brother’s teacher, saying the 5-year-old had been chosen Star Student for this week, but no one knew it except his daddy and me.

Every Friday their elementary school has an assembly for the first 20 minutes of school time, where kids with birthdays and kids who have done something noteworthy and kids who are chosen Star Student are honored.

His daddy looked at me and then told our boy, Maybe you can ask what you could do to be considered, but this answer doesn’t’ feel right, because the requirements for an award like this one lie outside of who he is on the inside.

And we can’t ask a kid to act outside of who he is, just to snag an award.

Ten minutes later, we watched our 5-year-old beam while the announcer read what his teacher had written, how he can always be counted on to offer help, how he is almost always kind and courteous to his peers and adults, how he loves people and always looks forward to his lessons.

And it’s hard not to feel proud, because this is exactly who he is, who he has always been, skilled at interpersonal relationships and always looking for the places where he can help and encourage others.

Yet I can’t help but think of my 8-year-old, sitting with his second grade class, watching his little brother get an award he has never been honored with.

Will he feel less than? Will he think he needs to be someone different? Will he believe that who he is is not good enough, because there is no award telling him any different?

What kind of damage are we doing here?

///

My second job out of college was working as a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News. Every day I’d crank out my stories, one after another, so I could help fill all those blank pages.

I took care with all my words, because I wanted to get them right, and I wanted to get them beautiful, too, especially for the feature stories, and so I’d practice and revise and revise again, diligently perfecting every letter, every word, every turn of phrase before turning them in.

The Hearst Corporation, which owns the Express-News and a whole family of other reputable newspapers, would every quarter hand out awards for best news story or feature story or op-ed column or page design.

It was an award every reporter wanted to take home, not just because it came with a cash reward, but also because it came with bragging rights and admiration in the newsroom.

Our editors would call a meeting on the second floor of the newsroom, where all the news reporters worked, and I would walk with my colleagues in features down a flight of stairs, wondering who might win this time.

Winners were announced in front of the entire editorial staff.

I won two of them in my three years with the newspaper, and I could not have known how they would twist my confidence like a sadistic lover.

When I was winning awards, I was a real writer. When I wasn’t, I was no writer at all.

Awards can do this ugly thing to us. They can make us forget all the really talented writers who join our ranks, who deserve those awards, too. We start thinking we can do it better than they can, and we start thinking we need to do it better than they can so we can win an award and prove our worth, because people will only know what we’re worth with an award to back us up.

We start thinking we might not have what it takes if we don’t win.

It’s an ugly place to be, waiting on a prize so you can know more surely who you are.

I didn’t know it then, but I can see it now, how those awards wrapped their pressure around me and whispered in a young-reporter ear, You are nothing without our validation. Win or quit.

///

I don’t want this for my boys.

I especially don’t want it for the 8-year-old one, who may never get Star Student in his whole elementary career.

He’s a boy who has his own ideas about things, and he’s not afraid to question everything, and he’s as strong-willed as they come.

They aren’t the traits that are typically awarded in a little boy. They aren’t even encouraged.

For weeks I’ve listened to my 5-year-old talk about wanting to win Star Student, because this is the pinnacle of success at their school, but is it the pinnacle of success for us, to be Star anything?

I hope not.

I hope, at the end of a day, I can say I am more interested in helping my boys stay true to who they are than I am interested in adding another award to the stack of to-keep memories from their school days.

Some Star Students are awarded for helping keep their classroom clean and tidy. And some are awarded for their consistency in doing everything they’re told the first time, and some are awarded for staying on task and never daydreaming about what they’ll do as a filmmaker when they’re grown.

But these are not the most important things in the world.

We reward kids for doing all the things that make our lives easier, but the world is sometimes better served by the kid who will stand up for what he believes in and challenge the status quo when it doesn’t make sense anymore, even when it’s inconvenient to us, the adults.

If all we had in the world were perfect rule-followers, which is what awards like this tell us we need and should be, how would anything significant, like a civil rights movement or a “women deserve the right to vote” protest or save-the-environment programs ever happen?

Yeah, it’s easier and more convenient to be the parents of the kid who does everything he’s asked to do, without question, who waits for instruction before starting a task (and completes it), who always has a kind, encouraging word to say, like my sweet 5-year-old.

I have a few of these in my house.

But there are times when I wish they would rebel like their oldest brother, because he is the one who shows me clearly where rules don’t make much sense anymore, and he is the one who always has those out-of-the-box solutions, and he is the one who will tell me true when I’m being a complete ass (without the word, of course, only the very-accurate description).

Who’s to say which one is better and which one deserves an award?

They both make me a better person.

My 8-year-old will try, for a time, to be the “model” Star Student, but he cannot deny who he is.

And I’m so glad.

His disappointment will open for us an opportunity to let him know that the people who take up the least space in a classroom or who demand the least amount of attention or who always do everything they’re told the first time are not the only ones who can make a difference in the world.

He will make a difference in this world, too, with his constant questioning and his creative mind and his rebellion.

That’s good enough for me.