SCRABBLE!

Scrabble, Anyone?

One thing I remember was that my Mom would usually find the time during holidays to play games with us kids. Now there were 4 of us, and she probably didn’t have much spare time. And maybe she played games with us throughout the year, but I remember it mostly during the holidays.

She liked scrabble best. She was good with words, she liked to read and was a good speller. So she liked Scrabble. She also taught me how to play Backgammon. To this day I don’t completely understand that game, but I can hold my own (after re-reading the rules). Of course there was Checkers and Chess, Monopoly and Sorry. But usually we would play Scrabble.

Now, I was a kid. My vocabulary couldn’t hold a candle to hers. She was a librarian! OK, So you know there was really no competition for her. But we played.

Sometimes she would win, sometimes I would win. It was fun, because she would praise my ability to come up with words, and I was always proud because my mom was so smart!

One time we were playing and talking and I remember clearly that she said to me.

“Kathy when you play games with your kids, don’t always let them win.”

(Now, it never occurred to me that she ever let me win!)

“Why?”

“Because they’ll need to know, that in life, you don’t always win. And being grown-up is also knowing how to lose.”

There is not one time, not one. That I play a game with my kids, that I don’t remember that.

As adults, we don’t always win. We may apply for a raise, or enter a cooking contest, or just try to learn something new, and we don’t always achieve success. Defeat is a part of life. Everyone experience it. I’m glad my mother taught me that it’s important that we lose with grace!