When Is Life Fair?

Dear Mr. & Ms. Kindergarten Teacher,

I have not been acquainted with you for some time now but have recently discovered I have a bone to pick with you, a really big bone, in fact. 30 years ago when I was in kindergarten you taught me that I had to be fair in my actions because life was fair in it's actions and that was the way it was played. The game of life, that is. So I set out to live my life on that principal. What goes around comes around, karma, do unto others what you would have done unto you, etc. And I gave it a good shot, I really did. But in these 30 years since my impressionable little mind was in your care I have discovered you are a big fat liar! Deceiver! Malinger! Fabricator! For if anything in this world is decidedly NOT fair, it is life. 

Some people are born beautiful, some severely disabled. Some children get cancer, but others get to die at 95 peacefully in their sleep. Some babies are cultivated from test tubes they are wanted so bad and others are ones their mothers wish they never had. Car accidents steal fathers but remarriage can give us sisters and brothers. Wars rip families apart as holidays bring loved ones closer together. And somehow I am supposed to glean from this awful tangle of contradictions that life is fair? See I believe you knew full well, talkin' outa both sides of your mouth, when you lied to me at the age of 5 and told me to play fair because everyone else did too. As an adult responsible for shaping the lives of children you did not do your due diligence and set up generations for imminent disappointment.

If you had just told me that being nice and kind were impertinent, and never given me the illusion of fairness existing in the world, I think I would have fared much better. I would not have expected it. I would not have become as offended when life was unfair to me. And I certainly would not have become so angry when the extent of that unfairness overtook my life. For if the balance was never mine to hold, why did you tell me it was? It seems to have made it that much harder. So please do a huge big favor to future generations and stop telling the little brains in your care that life is fair! Tell them its a journey to an unknown destination, theirs to uncover and discover, an amazing adventure into "what if" and if they are nice and kind people just might be nice and kind back to them. But please, for the love of all things holy, stop telling little kids life is fair. For some of us grow up to find out it is decidedly not.

Thanks for joining,

Leah