Beck Vass: My children think empathy is for losers

It was in the first maze where the battles began. Photo / Getty Images

I worry about the impact my daughter is going to have on this poor innocent world, writes Beck Vass.

There's nothing like a family holiday to bring out the competitive spirit in everyone.

We just spent two nights in Rotorua. There's so much to do there, even with a baby in tow. We made it up the gondola and had a turn on the luge. We visited Rainbow Springs, where the kids got to see real live kiwis.

We also went to two mazes which were the kids' highlights.

It was in the first maze, aMAZEme, where the battles began.

My husband took the baby in the stroller and paired up with our daughter, just turned seven, to run around the immaculate hedge maze.

I took our boy, four, and the race was on. But he tripped over and took a chunk out of his hand in a quite unlucky landing on the ground. We had to exit to get a plaster from the front desk, which delayed us significantly.

Look at me making excuses for losing. It hurts.

Our wee man, pretty tough when it comes to injuries, was clearly in pain and was no longer in the mood for running.

This was not helped by the shouts from our girl, fiercely competitive like myself, announcing that she had won and was in the middle already.

I hate losing. Especially to my husband.

However, in the end, I needed him to take us into the middle.

The 3D Maze we went to the next day was a wooden fence maze. You had to reach four corners and clip a card to show you had reached each one. This time we all went our own way.

I had the 12.5kg baby in the front pack on me and was battling heat (more excuses), and charged off once again but struggled to find my way to the last corner. Again, I needed my husband to lead me to the finish.

I am twice a loser - and failure as a human being.

Our girl came out, saying she and her brother had won. They did indeed have four corners clipped.

Hang on though… something seems suss about this.

"How many fences did you crawl under?" I asked.

"Just one… maybe two," our girl replied casually.

"Well, you cheated, my darling, and we don't cheat. You get disqualified, so actually Daddy won and I got second and you guys got last for breaking the rules."

To my horror, my husband, the soft touch, told them they had done a good job and they had won.

So there's him congratulating them and me, a stickler for the rules (and also trying to raise our children not to be crooks), going on about cheating.

I've spent so much time trying to instil this stuff and still I worry our girl has no empathy.

I worry about the impact she is going to have on this poor innocent world and fear people will blame me but I have tried and tried and I will continue to try but I fear she is a law unto herself. She started singing about winning.

"But you cheated," I reminded her, again.

"Well that doesn't matter," she said in that tone adults use with children when they didn't win.

"What matters is having fun… having fun and winning."

Empathy huh? I guess that's only for losers.