The strangest video I’ve ever seen surfaced in my inbox yesterday showing young girls prancing around a gym somewhere on stick horses pretending to actually be participating in a sport. This disturbed me on many levels. As a child, I loved my stick horse too. I rode it around the backyard for hours and spent time repairing it and dressing it up with yarn and buttons. I get the appeal to a little girl, since every little girl wants a pony and very few can afford one or even lessons. This “sport” seems like something parents made up so they wouldn’t have to pay stable fees. But the truth is even weirder.

This phenomenon has some kind of strange feminist undercurrent, where the participants have been indoctrinated to say things like, “There are no boys here bossing you around, telling you what to do.” Is that a thing? Because in my experience with my girls and their boy playmates, it’s the girls doing all the bossing. (It will most likely stay that way for the rest of their lives. Ask Mr. Fox, poor man, who has three of us constantly demanding things. Sometimes he and my son drive off in his truck for hours just to get some peace. I have no idea where they go, but I imagine wherever they end up they sit quietly and stare into space for a while, wondering why girls are so bossy, before going to the store to pick up the list of things I need.) It isn’t the “girls only” rule that is troubling, but the messaging that somehow the activity needs to be free of boys in order for it to be good. Huh? Don’t any of them have brothers?

Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be a “sport” many boys would be interested in. At least for now. Give it time, however, and someone is bound to bust it up for a transgendered child in the name of inclusion and tolerance. It’s fun to watch these people turn on one another.

The other disturbing thing about this, other than the absolute absurdity of giving ribbons for skipping around with a broomstick between your legs, is the absolute lack of a skill or talent requirement. Sports take dedication and hard work. You have to learn how to throw and catch a ball, play the outfield, skate on ice, or hit a golf ball. Then it takes years to hone and develop skills, which at some point will bring you great joy when mastered. It’s the same reason the guitar apps bother me. I play the guitar (badly) but I suffered to get callouses on my fingers and learn chords and practiced until my shoulder was in a constant state of spasm in order to play something that sounded good. These days kids turn on the iPad and play a guitar solo with no effort whatsoever and they think they’ve accomplished something.

My two-year-old can ride a stick horse. And if he can do it, then it’s nothing to get a ribbon for, I can assure you. These kids will join the delusional millennials who believe they are mermaids and spend thousands of dollars on synthetic tails. Meanwhile, no one is there to tell them they aren’t mermaids, but they’ll end up as people who have been indulged one time too many. You parents out there need to do a better job explaining to your kids why it’s worthwhile to practice and sweat and cry over a sport or an instrument. Teach them to hone their actual talents into skills. Otherwise, you’re going to have to sit through this on the weekends: