When I read Matt Richtel’s article, “The Competing Views on Competition,” last month in The New York Times I couldn’t stop thinking about what one of the chess moms I met told me while I was researching Playing to Win: “Raising kids is a big experiment and I won’t know till later if I did [...]
One weekend I went shopping at a mall in downtown Boston—and was transported into another culture. A hotel, connected to the mall, was hosting an Irish dancing competition (or “feis”). My friend turned to me and asked, “Wait, is this a child beauty pageant, or something else?” With the bobbing heads full of Shirley Temple-like [...]
