Be Thankful Life is Unfair

Recently one of Emily's friends was over for a playdate.  Amidst their wild fun, I had to lay down some boundaries.  The little girl immediately retorted and unknowingly  pushed my Crazy Momma button.  Emily saw it coming.  I watched her little face screw up into a near cartoon character expression, her hand even covered her eyes.  You see, Emily's friend said the one thing that makes me CRAZY.

"It's not fair."

Tell me, "it's not fair,"  and watch me open up a big can of bananas. 

My girls know they'd better not...ever... say this ridiculous comment.  But Emily's poor friend was just reacting out of the big-fat-rich-American-kid  lie that most of us teach our kids to believe by the time they are two years old. 

People will make your life fair.

We (and I am guilty too!) start this absurd concept of "fair" as early as possible.  "Let's be fair and share the toy."  "I will break the cookie in two and you will each get half.  That will be fair."  As parents we work, and work, and work to make it "fair,"  but the problem is that life actually isn't fair.

Three years ago our family had the privilege of being part of an amazing family Sunday School program called Red Card.  It addresses issues facing kids around the world.  Slavery, Homelessness, Hunger, AIDS, being Orphans.  Week after week we were faced with the hard truth about how kids are living today and how God calls us to respond.  After that amazing, eye-opening experience I just could no longer stomach listening to my girls say, "it's not fair," when it came to their petty, selfish wants.

 In all our efforts to make things "fair," we, as parents, are really just creating little monsters who believe the whole world, and every tiny decision, should be resolved in a way that makes them feel good.  We aren't actually creating children who seek fairness in the world, we are creating children who demand their whimsies and wants be satisfied. 

Hence enters my big can of bananas ... B..A..N...A...N...A...S!!!!

When one of my children tell me something is not fair my response now is,

"Nope, because life is not fair and you better PRAY you never get what's fair." 

or

"Nope, and you had better praise Jesus that He has not given you what would be fair."
if it's a big, big can of bananas that will be followed up by some horrifying fact like ....

• "One in four kids in America are living in POVERTY.  That's actually not fair."
• "16 thousand kids died of starvation today.  Who cares if Sarah ate the last cookie." 
• "Millions of children are actual slaves.  Why don't you think about how unfair that is while you clean the dishes." 

As you can imagine, they have pretty much stopped saying this.  I'm not trying to win some sort of dramatic mom Emmy, it's just so absurd that rich American kids would open their little overfed mouths to utter the words, "it's not fair." 

As we sit down to our overflowing Thanksgiving feast this week, I want my kids to notice and cry out,

It is NOT fair!

It truely is unfair.  I hope their hearts long for a Raleigh, a North Carolina, an America, a world where all kids sit down in a warm house with a mom and dad and eat, and eat, and eat.  I hope they will be part of a better generation than my own.  I hope that instead of following Gordon Gekko characters, they will look up and follow the likes of Katie Davis (watch her video below) and Malala Yousafzai.  

 

 I hope this Thanksgiving we all will be thankful for our very unfair lot in life, and cry out "it's not fair," for those that actually need us to.  



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