Still a Winner to Us

Today was election day. And yes, the state issues, school board members, and assorted taxes were on the ballot. But the important election in this house was the Fairbanks Elementary Student Council election.

Each 4th and 5th grade classroom chose two representatives to be on Student Council. A couple of weeks ago Maria was excited to report that she and her good friend Lily were chosen as the representatives for their class. As representatives, they have the option to run for a student council office, but if they lose, they still keep their representative status. Maria had the paper for a week, and finally decided to run for secretary the night before the paper was due (Lily was running for Treasurer). That weekend and following week, she worked hard on campaign posters and her speech. I helped her color posters and both Ben and I helped her with the speech. She spent time practicing her speech (shown on live video to entire student body), and I'm certain hers was better written then the other two candidates' speeches. Maria really felt that the office of secretary played to her strengths and she was obviously the best person for the job. Opponents included her nemesis Cami and a 4th grade girl (who is a good kid but always has next year)!

When the results came in, Cami won the election (although it was close). Maria was pretty upset. It's a tough lesson - she knows she would be better in the office than Cami, and worse, she told me that almost no one in the 5th grade likes Cami, so she doesn't know how she lost to her. I truly think the loss was harder to take when she lost to someone with the opposite personality than she has herself. (To give you the Cami-Maria history would be another blog post, but let me just say that Maria doesn't really like Cami but she winds up doing everything Maria does). But probably a good life lesson - Maria doesn't lose much. That is another likely reason this loss hurt so badly. She still is a part of student council - just not as an officer. And Lily lost as well, so at least they have each other. We told her how proud of her we were for trying, shared stories of elections we've both lost, and encouraged her to continue to be herself.

But boy, the first time you learn first hand about how unfair popularity is can be rough. And I would be lying if I didn't admit that this loss has been hard on me too - I just want her to have everything she wants.