Not Fair!

My parents always told me that life isn’t fair (Hi, Mom!). I hated that. I don’t remember whether I ever said it out loud, but I always thought, “but you should at least try to make it fair!” And that was probably followed by sobbing and flinging myself across the bed.

Of course, as a parent I now find myself in the position of trying to make things fair and/or explaining that life is not fair.

For instance, how do you make sure everyone gets an equal number of rides to day care on the Xtracycle (one person always has to provide their own ride) when one person got only half a ride one day?

Yes, that was the problem this morning. Yesterday I got a flat tire halfway to day care. It’s only half a mile from our house anyway, so I sent the girls onward on foot, walked my bike home and caught a bus.  And I successfully patched the tire in the evening! Yay, me.

This morning, one child said “So and so agreed that I could ride on the Xtracycle today because I only got half a ride yesterday.”  “OK,” I replied, relieved that I wasn’t going to have to deal with it.

Ha. Once we got outside, the other child said that she never agreed to anything! And the first was still insisting that it wasn’t fair because she only got half a ride yesterday.

I didn’t bother pointing out that if she had gotten a whole ride today, she would then be half a ride ahead of her sister. We had to leave. I told child #2 to get on, and of course child #1 was furious.  I said, “I’m sorry.” I didn’t say anything about life not being fair. I think I might still be allergic to that phrase, even if it’s true.