That's Not Fair!

The other day I was coming home with my six year old son . It was a particularly long day for me and by the time I had picked him up from his after school day care, I could think of nothing else but getting home and decompressing.

Now on this particular Friday night, my thirteen year old daughter was going to be babysitting our neighbors boy who is three. Keep in mind that my six year old really enjoys playing with our neighbors little boy. Maybe because he feels like it's his one chance to be the older kid, the big brother if you will, because at home he is the baby of our three kids.

Anyway, upon getting home our daughter is basically walking out to head over to our neighbors when my son says, "I'm coming with!"

My daughter says something like, "Sorry buddy, I'm babysitting over there. You can't come with."

The look on my boys face is like that of absolute betrayal. How can this be? How can his big sister be allowed to go over there but not him? Confusion and jealousy collide and he blurts out, "That's not fair! He's MY friend!"

I tell my daughter to just go and that I will explain it to the six year old. And we all know how simple it is to reason with a six year old, right?

When I tell him she's not going over there to play with his friend but to babysit his friend, he looks at me with these enormous blue eyes and says, "But she ALWAYS gets to babysit him. It's not FAIR!"

It's not fair. At six years old he has already latched on to the concept of what is and what isn't fair in this world. Or should I say, his world..? Of course I had my pat answer at the ready; the same one my parents dished out whenever I uttered the phrase "it's not fair" - can you guess it? Of course you can. Come on say it with me; one, two, three - LIFE isn't fair.

With that, I look at my wife as though to say "How about that? Is that not parenting at its best? Who has ever witnessed such wise parenting skills? I have silenced the six year old’s argument with three words.”

With that my wife turned and walked towards the other room which left me and my son standing there, like duelists ready to draw pistols at dawn. Me, waiting for him to say something else that I could counter with yet another sage cliche, him....ready to cry at how unfair life has become for him.

Three little words - That’s not fair. Now maybe you’ve stopped saying this a long time ago. Maybe the last time you said this was when you were six years old, or twelve years old, or maybe it was last Thursday for all I know. No matter when you might have actually said it last, I’m willing to bet you’ve thought it, and recently I might add.

In this life, we experience many joys and many heartbreaks. We get to be the first in line and then some days we are the last in line. Some days you’re the bug. Some days you’re the windshield. And isn’t it amazing how when things go in our favor, the concept of “fair” never even crosses our minds? I mean why should it? After all, for once in our life we’re the first in line. It all balances out, right? I mean, how many times have we been the last in line? Oh, but how many times have we thought while standing at the end of the line, “this isn’t fair”?

Even at six my son has determined that as long as things go his way, life is fair. But God save us from ourselves when things DON’T go our way. When you strip it all down, as long as things go our way, fair isn’t even part of the equation. It is that deep-rooted, in-born, part of humanity that we call Selfishness. It’s what some refer to as the “Me Complex”.

“What about me? What about me? What about me?” It’s that voice inside of us that never shuts up no matter how often we feed it and give in to it. It says, “Unless I get what I want, life is not fair. And it’s everybody else’s fault.”

Now I know that my son is six and there is so much that he needs to learn yet. I know that by and large, kids are just selfish. (I was!) I mean their whole world view is wrapped up in their limited perspective of the here and now. I mean my kid can’t even fathom that there are entire other cities beyond our Minneapolis, much less an entire world outside of our United States. He doesn’t even understand what a minute is. To him, a minute is how long he needs to wait for me to stop what I’m doing in order to rush to his next need. “Dad, can I get out of the tub now?”  “In a minute.” “Dad, can I have a snack now?” “In a minute..!” “Dad, can I watch a movie now?” “In a minute!!!”

You get the point.

But fairness? I guess my whole take on this starts with the question, who initiated the whole concept of “fairness”? Who was the first person to ever say, “that’s not fair”? How did they even know what “fair” is? It seems to me that no two humans on this planet have ever shared the exact same experiences in the exact same manner, thus, how can anyone determine what is fair unless you’ve experienced the exact same experiences in the exact same manner?

The dictionary defines Fair as such - “marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism.”

Self-Interest. Prejudice. Favoritism. Yeah, the human race has done a bang up job in denouncing these qualities, hasn’t it? I mean, we have rules and laws and courts and judges and juries all in place to ensure that we all live within certain boundaries and expectations in our society. We’re told that as long as we do the right thing, everything will work out just fine. But what about the single dad who works 70 hours a week in hopes to land that big account for his company so he can get that promotion and take better care of his kids....only to be passed over for the guy who has no kids, won $5000 in the lottery, and acquired the big account through less than honest means? Is that fair?

What about the 50 year old who never drinks, never smokes, runs 4 miles a day, and eats healthy at every meal. He’s the picture of good health, having done all the right things and yet, one day while eating his Special K, he falls over from a heart attack. Meanwhile, the 90 year old who smokes a pack of Camels everyday, and eats red meat while washing it down with a six pack of Bud, goes on like a Timex watch. Is this fair?

Life isn’t fair. And truth be told, it never will be. But the more I stop to think about it, the more I get it. Life can’t be fair. Because in essence, in order for our lives to be considered fair, it would require every situation, circumstance, and event to pan out in the exact way we want it to. And that, in essence, would require every situation, circumstance, and event to NOT pan out in the exact way that someone else would want it to. Life just can’t go both ways like that.

So there I am with my six year old son. His eyes are filling up with tears, wondering why his sister gets to have all the fun. Why does she get to be with his friend while he is relegated to a boring Friday night with me and his mom? It just doesn’t make any sense to him at all and no wise words from dad are going to help him deal with this very real and very unfair situation. In that moment, I got it. I realized that every situation and circumstance and event that ever left me angry, frustrated, and rejected, was never about being fair at all. It was about growth and perspective and experience and appreciation. I mean if I always got my way in life, how could I ever appreciate the good when I experience it? Without the bad, or rather the unfair, there wouldn’t be a reference point to show me what is good.

So I see my heartbroken little boy (yes, at six years old, this IS a big deal)... and I realize that life isn’t about what’s fair so much as it’s about how to handle life when it’s unfair. Because that’s when we grow and learn and cope and ask questions and search for answers and gain wisdom and experience. It’s what makes us better. And that is what makes life so much more worth living than any amount of fairness. I mean, our limited views on what is and isn’t fair are completely squashed when the real world kicks in. When a hurricane crushes an entire city; when a town is destroyed by a tornado; when a wife and mother is mugged and left for dead; when a child is kidnapped; when a family member is diagnosed with inoperable cancer....when life is unfair for others or ourselves, it is at that moment that we realize that our short-sighted view of “fair” is just that; short-sighted. And it is at that moment where we realize that even the very breath we take is a gift.

So now, I ask you - do you really want life to be fair all the time? Do you really need life to go your way every moment of every day? Is your life nothing more than a short-sighted view of which you cannot see beyond yourself?

May you come to realize that life is not meant to be fair, but rather it is meant to be experienced in all its ups and downs. May you realize that fairness is honest and impartial. May you be set free from self-interest, prejudice, and favoritism. May you embrace this life for all it is. Unfair and all.


Tommy Wittig
© 2012 T-Dub-Ya Words