Life's not always fair ...
I’m ten years old standing solo on my trampoline (without a net) in my backyard belting out the words (resoundingly off-key) to “What about me” (the original Moving Pictures version) with such melodrama I could almost invoke tears.
C’mon, you remember…
Well there's a pretty girl serving at the counter of the corner shop
She's been waiting back there, waiting for her dreams
Her dreams walk in and out they never stop
Well she's not too proud to cry out loud
She runs to the street and she screams
And the big chorus…
What about me, it isn't fair
I've had enough now i want my share
Can't you see i wanna live
But you just take more than you give
And for full theatrical effect…
So take a step back and see the little people
They may be young but they're the ones
That make the big people big (*this was my favourite line)
So listen, as they whisper
What about me
I couldn’t hold a tune to save myself but it was the release of the words that I wanted. The venting about life and how unfair it all was. I cannot actually recall the source of the unfairness but in a family of four children, there was bound to be some moment in time where my observations were that things were imbalanced.
As an adult, I reflect on this time and find it somewhat baffling and amusing. My mum is the Queen of Fair. She used to serve tinned cherries and count them out because she knew we’d spit the pips into our bowls and compare notes. What she offered one child she offered the others – food, gifts, help, time, love. My overall perception is that things were incredibly fair in my home.
As a result, I like things to be fair. That could be personality, upbringing, or a combination of the two. I don’t function particularly rationally when life throws curve balls that illuminate the unfairness of the world. I have a honed social justice gene that fires a spark inside me, which ultimately is ignited by unfairness.
Clichés spout that life’s not fair, but I have always disputed that palaver. What we can control, we can at least attempt to make fair.
Now I’m a parent, I realise when it comes to children fairness is a tricky one. Christmas can be a time that highlights issues of inequality. Not just within our immediate family but amongst friends, neighbours and the wider community. How many of us ensured our children had equal value of presents, or the same number of gifts to unwrap so it didn’t look like one received more than another?
As our children grow, do we adhere to the same rules for subsequent children as we did for the first, out of fairness, or do we introduce some flexibility as we age, and mature and reason what is worth arguing about? How does that sit with the firstborn who was hit with the rule stick? How do we explain away the differences in parenting between friends - some stricter, some more lenient, when we hear the inevitable cry of "that's not fair"? Is it simply: their family, their rules?
More complicated than that is analysing the needs of our children. Some children require more attention, guidance, discipline, cuddles. Is that fair? No, but it is reality. It is almost impossible to equally dish out time between our children when there is a new baby, or a special needs child, or an ill child.
No one wants to breed resentment in a family but it’s worth teaching our children that life isn’t fair. Bad things happen to good people; we don’t always win even when we try our hardest; deserving something because we are good and that would be the fair thing is not the way the world works. Harsh but valuable life lessons that will help build resilience (ahh, one of those words schools love to promote!). To balance that, for me, it is important to single out the values that are worth fighting for. I don’t want my children to shrug off something that is not fair because “that’s life” if it is something they truly believe in.
Accepting that life is not fair, sorting out when to challenge this and when to make peace with it are skills I need to teach myself, so I can hand them onto my children!
How do you handle the unfairness in life? Do you teach your children that life isn’t fair? What song did you stand on your trampoline and sing with gusto!? Leave your comment on our Essential Kids' forums.
Kylie
P.S. Happy New Year!
