Tiger Woods Gate is still in full swing, with new mistresses crawling out of the woodwork everyday. Tiger himself has publicly admitted to his affairs, and there is no denying that Tiger has lowered himself from clean cut role model to what we have come to expect of most professional athletes.
Children are more perceptive than we think, and even kids who aren’t golf fans look up to Tiger. Now our kids know the drama as well: the cheating, the voicemails, the golf club wielding wife.
I am the first to say that professional athletes should not be role models. Jeremy wrote of the Tiger Woods Scandal when it first broke, and voiced his disappointment in yet another professional athlete gone astray. He wrote, “Tiger Woods was THE role model everyone could look up to. He was photogenic, nice, charitable, a family man and seemingly very humble about it all.”
I know where Jeremy is coming from, and where millions of other sports fans are coming from, but in the grander scheme I just don’t see why that warrants a role model title. What are we telling children that have no athletic ability? Or no interest in sports at all? Because someone can shoot a basket, or run faster than the average bear doesn’t mean that they are someone to be emulated. Talent and integrity do not go hand in hand, and more often than not, power and praise has a negative effect on the way people make decisions. When everyone tells you you are awesome, no matter what, it’s kind of hard to disagree with them.
Michael Phelps smokes pot. Serena Williams threatens bodily harm. Mike Tyson beat his wife. Michael Vick tortured animals. A-Rod lied about steroid use. As each of these scandals broke, people thought “How!? Why!? What will we tell the children?” Maybe you should tell them that professional athletes, scandal or not, are not people to look up to.
Everyone was shocked and appalled that Tiger, the handsome, hardworking, polite golfer turned out to not be what they thought he was, but you can’t be mad that someone you don’t know doesn’t live up to your expectations.
Honestly, my first reaction when I heard of the affairs was “that poor family.” I do not condone cheating, lying, disrespect or unprotected sex, but I know this is the kind of thing the media loves and thrives on. We like to see heroes fall, even though we don’t like to admit it. My first reaction was sympathy for the wife, and the children, and the complete lack of privacy that family was going to have while they tried to work through very personal, embarrassing, sensitive issues. I am not shocked by his actions. I do not know this man, and therefore I have no expectations of him.
Is the public outraged? Are they shocked? They claim to be. While they all gasp and tsk out of one side of their mouth, they can’t wait to hear the next mistress’s tell-all interview or snatch up all the magazines in the checkout stand with his crying wife on the cover.
So everyone asks, what do we tell our children? How do we explain that their idol is no longer the man we thought he was? The work should have been done earlier, when you instilled in your child that sports stars are just people who are good at games. Real role models are the next door neighbors who are primary care takers for their ailing parents, or the volunteers who help clothe women at domestic care shelters, or the anonymous donors who share with others when they themselves are having trouble making ends meet. Role models should be the everyday people who do good for the sake of doing good, not for millions of dollars, and paparazzi photo ops because they can put a ball in a hole.
What do you say to your children? You tell them that Tiger Woods is just a man that is good at golf, but that does not make him a good man, or an honest man, and that has nothing to do with his private life, which for some reason people are very interested in. Good people are those who show integrity by helping others, being honest, and doing the right thing even when it is not popular. Those are the kinds of people you should aspire to be like.
