Aren’t Delusions of Grandeur a Right of Childhood?

I’ll never forget the day my sister called with some bittersweet news about her son, then about 12 years old. “He’s finally realized that he will probably not grow up to play for the Yankees,” my sister told me. Until then, a limitless kind of passion for baseball, a dream culminating in joining Derek Jeter on the field, had been the driving force in my nephew’s life. Now, his love of the game would morph into something else — the simple joy in playing Little League and pick-up games, the satisfaction of mastering decades of history and statistics, the pleasure of being a devoted spectator.

It was a sad realization, but would my nephew have been better off without those years of fervent belief in his potential on the mound? I don’t think so. Which is why I was so alarmed by the news that a company is offering genetic testing of young children to determine which sports they are likely (or more probably unlikely) to excel at, giving parents a so-called edge in guiding their children toward athletic success and, presumably, away from disappointment.

My parents didn’t need genetic testing to know there was no chance that I was going to fulfill my childhood fantasy of dancing with the New York City Ballet. They could see my short and chunky thighs and knew that I was already on my way to carrying on a family tradition of, shall we say, zaftig, breasts. So did they take me out of dancing class? Force me to confront my genetic destiny in the mirror? Of course they didn’t, and I had years of beloved dancing before I moved on to other pursuits.

This kind of testing suggests that childhood dreams are nothing but delusions of grandeur that kids need to be relieved of. Depriving children of their dreams and their disappointments would do far more damage.