A bit late to the discussion, but all generations value things based on their experiences growing up.

Traditionalists (pre baby boom) grew up during the Great Depression and WW2 and probably shared a room with 4 or more siblings. They didn’t want their children to experience the hardships they had, so they worked their asses off to provide a better home life for their kids. As a consequence of valuing work and money so much, they weren’t there for their children, often missing games, recitals, and so forth.

Baby Boomers grew up with more than their parents had, but resented them for not being in their lives as much as they wanted. Theybplaced a higher value on games, recitals, etc. and often making them more competitive than needed. I resented my father for making me play sports I didn’t want and being overly critical of my performance, and he was there all the time. I also recall problems with parents getting mad at each other over their child’s playing time and position. Of course it sucked for me sometimes when I drove 2 hours to play one inning or get 2 minutes in garbage time.

Now I have a kid and I want him to have fun playing sports and not experience the bullshit I put up with. I guess participation trophies are a part of that, because I want everyone to have fun and am willing to bench my star player to lose the game so the other kids can have fun too.