The "Not Fair" Trap

People, in general, have a tendency to expect things to be “fair”. We learn early on that fair = right, unfair = wrong. I wish things were so simple. Fairness is extremely subjective, what seems fair to one person may seem unfair to another.

“She was invited for a play date and I wasn't!”

“He got a bigger piece than I did!”

“You bought her new shoes and not me!”

In a normal parenting environment, this is extremely frustrating. In a blended family, it is enough to start World War III! When the kids are at the other parent’s home, they expect life to stand still at our home. No one should do anything or receive anything that may be considered “fun”, “exciting” or simply different from normal routine.

Here’s our scenario:

• We have 3 kids full time
• We have 1 kid half time
• We are supposed to get the other 3 a little less than half time but often don’t get the minimum visitation.

The kids that are home full time get to go to the family parties (birthdays, anniversaries), church events or shopping outings that happen to fall during time we don’t have the others. They also “need” more things at our home like clothes, shoes, supplies, etc. They also experience more down time when there isn't anything planned like soccer games.

Regardless of the living arrangements or circumstances, when everyone is home, it is like each kid takes a personal inventory of what the others got while they were gone. They get disappointed of the perceived “extra” stuff the others got to do when they weren't home. We then hear:

“You spend more time with them than me.”

“We don’t go there when I’m over there.”

“I don’t get extra clothes.”

“They get to do xyz and I don’t.”

“It’s not fair”

We fell into the “It’s not fair” trap and tried putting life on hold and not accepting activities that might make the other kids feel bad. What we find is that they were doing fun and exciting stuff at the other parent’s house while we were expected to wait for them. We quickly learned that “fair” and “unfair” rarely applies to blended family parenting.

We now say, “It’s not fair. It’s not unfair. It’s just different.”

We should always encourage the kids to take “fair” and “unfair” out of their vocabulary in this situation. If you let a child think these situations are “unfair”, they feel they were “wronged”. They begin to focus on the other siblings and what they “get” and it becomes a crusade to make things equal, fair and just. You find yourself defending why you bought the child new shoes because they grew out of their old ones or why you allowed one to go to a birthday party they were invited to. 

No one was wronged. It is not unfair. In reality; it is just a different situation.

It doesn't help we have ex-spouses encouraging the fair/unfair mentality by saying, “They always do things with the other kids and not you.” Or if one child gets a gift from a birthday party, the other parent goes out and buys the child who didn't get something to make it “fair”.

Regardless of the other parents’ style of dealing with this situation, our message stays clear.

 “If you want to be treated as an individual, you will not always receive what someone else gets and they won’t always receive what you get. If you want to be treated the same, we can punish you when they get in trouble, buy everyone the exact same clothes and shoes, put everyone to bed at the same time, not allow you to go to parties unless everyone is invited because it wouldn't be ‘fair’ based on your definition. You can’t pick and choose what is ‘fair’ when you want to benefit something, sometimes things are just different.”