Life Isn't Always Fair

My oldest daughter has always had a very strong desire for fairness in life. I'm sure I couldn't count the number of times while she was growing up that she spoke the phrase "That's not fair." and I would unsympathetically reply, "Life isn't always fair." I do believe that first born children often have to deal with more unfairness in life than other children. They are the oldest and therefore are sometimes held up as the example, have to live up to high expectations, have to carry more than their fair share of the work, have to be the guinea pigs for parenting attempts that backfire, are expected to act the oldest in disputes... While I understand and often join in her desire for fairness, I am also willing to acknowledge that sometimes life just isn't fair and that's just the way it is and that's really not necessarily a bad thing.

This daughter has recently been experiencing one of the joys of married life - deciding which family to spend the holidays with. How are we, as a married couple, going to make both families happy and how are we going to divide our time fairly? The son-in-law's immediate family live here in the valley, which in many cases makes life easier and in a few cases, harder. This year their family is spending Thanksgiving with a sister in Gallup, New Mexico. They want the newlyweds to go with them. This has been a topic of much thought, discussion and consideration. If the couple spends Thanksgiving with his family then the fair thing to do would be to spend Christmas with her family. However, when you consider that his family lives "in the neighborhood" it seems somewhat selfish on the wife's part to tell the husband "you don't get to see your family on Christmas." especially considering that he has a missionary brother who only gets to call home on Christmas and Mother's Day. It wouldn't really be fair for him to have to miss his brother's phone call if it were possible for him to be there. This is one of those situations where life really can't be fair, or where you have to rethink, "What is fair?"

I think sometimes fair doesn't translate into splitting things right down the middle. If you have a 16 year old boy and a 1 year old boy a fair division of a cookie might not be a 50/50 split. The needs and the stomach size of the 2 boys are different. This is why life doesn't always seem fair. The 1 year old might rightly feel that he hasn't gotten his fair share if he is given less than half of the cookie. When we take into consideration all the varying circumstances and needs of the individuals involved, often the truly fair solution might seem to favor one person more than the other. Next time it just might favor the other person.

I love my daughter and my son-in-law. I want to spend time with them whenever I can and I especially like to be with my daughter on the holidays, but I also understand that given the circumstances the fair solution might not fall in my favor. I might not get my entire half of the cookie this time. I am OK with that fact.

I like to believe that in the end we will all look back and see that life really was fair for each one of us in a very personal way. That our loving Heavenly Father looked at each one of His children's needs and tried to always deal with us fairly without taking away our agency or the agency of any of His other children. When we die I think that we will realize that life was much fairer than we ever imagined at the time.

However, when grandchildren are added to the equation I might not feel as noble and generous as I do today. I'm giving the other grandparents fair warning.