Its Not Fair!!!!

Wow, what a fun phrase! "AGHHHHH, IT'S NOT FAIR!!" "You're MEAN!"

I love my kids. Sometimes I feel so apathetic about the 'fairness' issue. As a parent, is it our job to make things F-A-I-R or is it our job to raise our children to understand the concept of "LIFE's NOT FAIR!" Even as an adult, I've used that phrase myself....so the question remains, IS Life supposed to be fair or are we just supposed to deal with it?

Real estate offers are based on FAIR market value. If my neighbor sells their house for $182,000, then its probably not gonna fly for me to sell my house for $275,000.

I don't let my kids stay up as late as I do, because I can't handle how crabby they'll be the next day because they require more sleep than I do -- but that's the difference between adults and children. My 11 yr old has to go to bed at the same time as the 4 yr old.....is THAT fair? SHOULD it be?? Can an 11 yr old handle a later bedtime than a 4 yr old?? What if the 4 yr old naps??

If one of my children has a snack, they all want a snack. I can't ALWAYS tell if they are truly hungry or just bored (and thinking they wanna eat) so is it fair to give one a snack and not the others? I can tell you THEY don't think so! I don't want any of my children to go hungry, but I also don't want any of them dealing with the same weight problem I am..... What's a mom to do?

I think that the answer is individual for each family, each person: if decisions such as who gets to do this or that, who gets to stay up later than someone else, etc. is based on how well THAT person can handle it, then I suppose it is only fair ;-) to say that the decision is individual and not based on fairness......

Is that FAIR to say? :-)