Yes I agree you should be very proud of your kids when they win and bragging is quite alright. I guess my problem all boils down to seeing someone tell everyone that at least their kid won as if there was no other option. Win at all costs! Also having the kid decline a handshake after the kid won and tell other kids that at least they know who the best is. And this all happens in a po dunk county fair especially when none of the other kids can even afford a cool barn and nothing better than a feedlot steer. To me, what's that teaching kids?
[/quote]
It teaches kids that life is not fair, that other people have more money/choose to spend their money differently than you. We are in a "po dunk" county fair in Kansas. We also raise a few club calves for my kids to show. We are in our first years of 4-H, and are already hearing all the nasty comments. We showed a February 2014 heifer, and heard all about how she wasn't a bucket calf, etc. My daughter than went in, as a 7 year old, and won our county horse show. You wanna talk about nasty. What does that teach kids? Because someone is willing to work harder than you they must be bad? The horse nor the heifer's mother were expensive, we just worked really hard at it, and so what if they were expensive. There are families in our county who "just can't afford to spend that kind of money for a show animal," but are gone every weekend to their lakehouse, or on their boat, or to their condo in the mountains. We don't do any of that, we raise and show cattle and spend our weekends/vacations/holidays with our cattle. I figure I don't want anyone telling me how to spend my money, I'm not gonna tell them how to spend theirs.