What I've Learned About Fairness

Motherhood is educating me on the value, necessity, and rules of fairness.

Apparently I am a novice--I do not know what is fair and what is not fair. I do not have a natural ability for determining who is experiencing unfairness and who has more than their share of fairness. This must be critical information because it is a major topic of conversation at our house. Thankfully, I have four tireless teachers--without them I would live my life oblivious to the finer points of fairness.

For example, turn-taking: personally, I always thought I had a reasonable understanding of the concept. It seems self-explanatory. What I'm learning is that my original concept of turn-taking is too narrow. I need to "broaden my horizon", so to speak. I guess I'm supposed to remember who sat where in the car, at the dinner table, next to Dad at church, next to Dad at dinner, next to Dad during scripture study, ... I'm noticing a pattern here. Maybe Dad should have to remember this stuff! Then it would free up my mind to remember who last: got their food first, said the prayer, sat on the stool, played on the computer, cleaned the bathroom, got out of the car first (we have this debate EVERY DAY), found my keys (we have this debate most everyday too--maybe I should keep better track of my keys), tied Nathan's shoes (and everyday I wonder why I didn't buy velcro shoes), carried the laundry basket from the bedroom (we have two debates about this each week--one for each bedroom--maybe I should put them all in one room and save a debate each week), used the metronome first, practiced on the upstairs piano, helped cook dinner, ...

Maybe my problem with turn-taking is not conceptual--it's memory. I wish I could buy some RAM space for my brain.

Speaking of memory, what has happened to mine? I can remember a time when I remembered most everything. I imagine when I was a kid I had no trouble remembering all this "fair" stuff. Maybe younger brains are just more "active"--like their bodies. Somehow my younger kids are able to remember how much I read to the older kids when they were younger. That means they are retaining and drawing on information from when they were infants to 3.5 years old. Amazing! The only thing I know from that time is what my parents tell me and I also have a vague memory of my favorite doll hanging on the clothes line. That's all I remember--my mom tells me that she was hanging on the clothes line because I bathed her in the toilet but I think she's possibly mistaken because I don't remember that. It sounds very disgusting--I'm sure I would never bathe anything in a toilet!

Maybe my brain is only capable of retaining a certain quantity of information and it's filled up. That would mean this is my parent's fault for making me go to school and becoming educated--I can tell my kids that it's grandma and grandpa's fault for filling my head with all this knowledge that there is no more room for fair.

Honestly, though, why waste brain space remembering "fair" stuff when there are incessant, noisy reminders all the time. I guess I should be thanking my kids not only for teaching me the finer points of fairness but for helping me remember all the lessons.

P.S.--My kids did not think this post was at all funny.