No One’s Keeping Score

Story time, Josiah. It's the Monday after Mother's Day. We’re watching your modern dance class performance for all the mummies over dinner. You were partnered with Aria, your best friend whom you insist you’re going to marry. Your class’ choreography was around “Mama I Love You” by the Spice Girls.

I commented on how you did such a sweet dance for mummy and you started to get upset. When I asked why, you said it’s because you wanted the school to have a “nice and pretty song” for daddy as well.

You've arrived at your fairness phase and that's all you obsess about these days.

Earlier that evening, we went out for a bicycle ride around the neighbourhood. You had already finished your dinner but Aurelia was still eating. I went inside to get her bowl to feed her outside and you got upset. When I asked why, you said, “How come Aurelia gets to have dinner on her bicycle ride and I can’t?”

I reminded you that before Aurelia was born, I fed you on countless bicycle rides and walks to the playground. You used to take so long to finish your food that I had to put you on the swing and only agreed to swing you after you’d eaten a mouthful of food. “Aurelia didn’t have any of that, so it’s ok for Aurelia to finish up her dinner as we take a walk outside.”

You weren’t satisfied. “Back when Aurelia was in mummy’s tummy, she couldn’t feel anything yet, so it can’t be unfair!”

It’s a beautiful thing to see your theory around fairness taking shape. It was a clever bit of logic: if the other person doesn’t feel the loss, it doesn’t count.

And it's not just the bike ride or the dance. After every modern dance class, you would ask the teachers for one more sticker so Aurelia could have one too — until they had to introduce a rule that stickers were only for students enrolled. At four and a half, your concept of fairness doesn’t only apply to yourself but to others around you.

As you get older, people will tell you that life isn’t fair and you’ll just have to deal with it. That’s what grown ups say when they’ve stopped thinking about it.

Here's a more honest version. Life isn't really unfair, it's just indifferent. There's no one keeping score the way you want them to. The universe is just a place where good and bad things happen, and some of those things will land on you, some on Aurelia, some on neither of you, some on both.

And once you stop waiting for the scoreboard to balance, you get to focus on the part that's truly yours. Whether the good things or bad things land on you — that’s never up to you. How you respond, what you carry, what you let go of, who you become because of it — those parts are yours to determine.

I hope this is what you (and Aurelia too, when she’s old enough to understand) carry with you as you grow up. Not the bitter version "life's unfair, get used to it" but the freeing one. The world isn't doing anything to you, it's just the world. And you get to decide what kind of person walks (or dances) through it.

And about the “nice and pretty song for daddy”, you weren't upset about it because you didn't get something. You were upset because you thought daddy didn't get something.

That instinct — caring about the fairness of things that aren’t even happening to you — is one of the best things about you. Most people spend their lives keeping score of what they didn't get, and they forget to notice what someone else didn't get. Don't lose it.

There’ll be times when the world won’t be fair to either of you. I hope that instead of counting what you’re owed, you learn to play the hand you're dealt decisively, while noticing when someone else is missing out and doing something about it.

In the meantime, you both are getting the exact same toy / treat / snack until this obsession with fairness subsides so that we can keep the house from burning down.