The Myth of Fairness — The Myths Series

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The Myth of Fairness–getting over think­ing life should be fair is, for some, a life-long task.

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“Hey! Wait a Minute! That’s not fair!”

If you hang around kids long enough, or if you ever were one ;-), you’ll remem­ber hear­ing or speak­ing that phrase. When those words are uttered, it’s pret­ty clear that the speak­er thinks that “some­thing has­n’t worked out like it was sup­posed to.”

A rule, the speaker thinks, has been violated.

Because of the squab­bles that result over fair­ness, par­ents are known to devise elab­o­rate ploys to pre­serve the illu­sion of fairness. 

Dar­bel­la remem­bers this one regard­ing shar­ing while grow­ing up with her sis­ter. When­ev­er dessert was divid­ed between them, one got to do the cut­ting, and the oth­er per­son got to choose “which piece.” Dar describes how care­ful­ly the cut­ter would mea­sure and cut, lest they give the oth­er the “unfair” advan­tage of get­ting 1% more pie.

Because of course, everyone knows that life (and pie sharing) is supposed to be perfectly fair and absolutely equal.

A long time ago I coun­selled a teen; she I one of three. She declared–often and loudly–that her father loved her sis­ter best, her moth­er loved her broth­er best, and that meant that she was left out of being “loved” best by a par­ent… and… wait for it… that was­n’t fair!!!

More on this one later. 

So, all of this talk of fair­ness makes sense when we’re talk­ing about the hurt feel­ings of lit­tle kids. We do what we can to soothe them, and put in time until they grow up. 

Because “fair, not fair” — is how a child thinks.

At the same time, we, as adults, know that con­cepts such as fair­ness do not actu­al­ly func­tion in the real world. 

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Where this gets a little odd is when adults spout “fairness” as a valid model for life. 

Back when I was coun­selling, I got a call from anoth­er psy­chother­a­pist who worked in the same town. Appar­ent­ly the Employ­ee Assis­tance Plan we both got client refer­rals from had referred the same client to both of us.

We were unaware of this. 

The client called my col­league and made an appoint­ment. Then I called, and he was able to book with me soon­er, so he did. I knew noth­ing about the oth­er therapist.

He arrived at my office, we did a ses­sion, and at the end of the ses­sion he told me what had hap­pened. I sug­gest­ed he see the oth­er per­son, since he’d booked with her first, but he decid­ed to con­tin­ue to see me. 

Not a per­fect sce­nario, but not the end of the world, either. 

Any­way, he called the oth­er ther­a­pist and can­celled his first ses­sion with her, explain­ing what had hap­pened. She was not pleased. 

So, she called to find out why I’d seen the guy. 

I said, “He called me and we booked an appoint­ment. At the end of his ses­sion, he men­tioned he booked one with you. I sug­gest­ed he see you instead of me, but he chose to con­tin­ue to see me.” 

She sput­tered, “But … but … that’s not fair!” 

I man­aged not to spray cof­fee out my nose. I said, “Hmm.” She said, “Well, at least the insur­ance com­pa­ny admit­ted they were wrong for refer­ring him to both of us, and are going to pay me for the can­celled ses­sion.” I said, “Um hmm.”

She paused, she waited. I said nothing. Unsatisfied that I hadn’t made the world fair for her, she rung off.

I was most­ly con­fused as to how a ther­a­pist had­n’t fig­ured out that the world isn’t fair. 

On the oth­er side of the “fair­ness” coin, friends of ours suc­cess­ful­ly brought their kids up not to expect fairness. 

I remem­ber one sto­ry when Dar, who taught with the mom, drove her and her daugh­ter to the kid’s day­care, drop off the daugh­ter and then car­ry on to school. The mom buck­led the kid into the back seat, and climbed into the front. 

The kid pout­ed and wailed, “I thought you’d sit back here with me.” The mom said she’d cho­sen to sit up front. The kid went, “That’s not fair!” Mom replied, “Well, life is shit and then you die.” 

The kid cried, “I know!!!!” 

Clear­ly the kid had heard that bit of wis­dom before. 

What’s impor­tant about that sto­ry is that, from an ear­ly age (the kid was 3 at the time) she was learn­ing not to expect peo­ple to treat her as being spe­cial. While she is “spe­cial” as in “a unique being,” she is not “spe­cial” as in “more impor­tant that others.”

Here’s the key. When people scream, “That’s not fair!” they don’t want fairness, as in equality. They want special treatment.

Back to the teen I men­tioned above. She con­sid­ered her­self the “odd man out”–no par­ent loved her best. 

So, what’s she real­ly look­ing for? 

Well, on one lev­el she was say­ing, “Par­ents should love all their chil­dren the same.” Par­ents do, of course, spout that non­sense to their kids, to stop them from fight­ing over, “Mom­my loves you best!” but par­ents don’t love their chil­dren the same. 

They relate to each child as they per­ceive the kid to be–the par­ents’ way of deal­ing with each kid is the result of their own thoughts, com­pas­sion and prejudices. 

What the teen real­ly meant, and lat­er admit­ted, was, “I want my par­ents to love me most. I don’t want to share their love with my younger sib­lings. I had them to myself for the year before my broth­er was born, and I still want their total devo­tion and attention.”

This helps us to unpack what “fair” means for most people and in most situations.

Fair means,

• “I want to be treat­ed as spe­cial, nev­er have any­thing go wrong and always get my way. 
• I want my needs con­sid­ered before and above every­one else’s. 
• I want all sick­ness, war, pover­ty and pesti­lence to stop, at least as it affects me, and I want it to stop now! 
• My par­ents should be per­fect, my part­ner per­fect, my kids per­fect. What I mean by per­fect is that they act like I want them to, nev­er get sick or die on me, and always strive to keep me happy. 
• Any­thing less just isn’t fair.”

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Such think­ing makes sense for a three-year-old who wants mom­my in the back seat. It is a tad lame com­ing from a teen want­i­ng to be an only child. It is pathet­ic com­ing from an adult who expects def­er­en­tial, pref­er­en­tial treat­ment and then whines because “life is shit and then you die.” 

Does­n’t mat­ter what your jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, nor how you put it. 

“My hus­band works all the time and won’t help with the kids. I need time for myself and he’s not pulling his weight.” Mes­sage? “It’s not fair.” 

“We’re sup­posed to be co-par­ent­ing, and he keeps dis­agree­ing with me, when all I want is what’s best for the kids!” Mes­sage? “It’s not fair… he should do it my way.” 

Have a look at your “fair­ness list.” Write it out and notice how hard-done-by you feel. 

Then, give your­self a shake, burn the list and decide what you’re going to do to get over the need to have more, to get your way, to be pro­tect­ed from life, and to be treat­ed as special.

It won’t work, because you’re not.

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