We had an 18 month old when our boy-girl twins were born.
Yes, our hands were full… (everyone’s favorite thing to exclaim when they saw us coming)
No, I don’t remember a lot of that first year.
I had to divide my time up a bit to try to get time with each of them.
This was the beginning of it all.
When fairness entered the picture.
I remember a few Christmases when they were all 3, 4, 5 and a lot of times
the gifts would be in sets of 3’s.
3 toy vacuums.
3 lego sets.
3 Tag Junior reading sets.
Fairness was a thing because it made life with 3 toddlers a whole lot easier.
My dad sent me a cartoon where a mom weighed the amount ice cream she was giving each child
and told them they were exactly the same.
And then the little girl started counting the sprinkles…
When they are young, most of the time,
fairness is within your control.
You can easily level the playing field, not that you always should, but you can.
As a parent, most things are in your control.
You can set up a playdate if one kid is invited to a birthday party.
You can say that there’s more strawberries if you want more strawberries.
Everyone can go jump one more time off of the diving board!
I still count out cookies or snacks sometimes just to be able to say they are the same!!
As a parent, you have some control on making the fairness police content.
Until you don’t.
As they get older it is harder.
There’s less in your control.
A WHOLE LOT LESS.
They see unfairness in the world. It pains them.
“Why didn’t they take Kiwi’s sister to the doctor? Why did she die? That’s not right! It’s not fair!”
This was the kids’ response after touring a Compassion event for families to learn how kids live around the world.
It’s not fair.
And their response is the proper response.
The things they see should hurt their hearts.
There’s a whole lot out there not fair.
Part of this is just the kids growing up and well, maybe,
it’s me growing up, too.
It’s me comforting my kids when something out of our control
happens and we can’t fix it.
It’s me turning my focus to where true inequality exists.
It’s about seeing truth that has been covered up
and pulling off whatever disguises –
including good intentions, tradition and ignorance.
May our hearts be open and
our eyes willing to see inequality…
And not only the unfairness in our lives – that we see very clearly…
May we not be so focused on counting sprinkles that we
are blind to what is happening before us.
May our eyes be opened to even that which we do not wish
to see, understand or acknowledge.
May the unfairness we see move us to action.
Some things are within your control.
