Life is not fair...

Just before the school year came to an end in June, G decided to give out the leftover nut free ice cream to some of the kids at lunch time. It was literally first come first served and G did not anticipate the chaos. He decided to quickly retract on his offer and he had 2 girls walk up to him and tell him that it is not fair! G, being who he is, told them that life is not fair and that they should get used to it!

Guess what happened next?!

A couple of days later, G was called into the Principal's office as the 2 girls complained about him! Obviously G was not in any real trouble. The Principal just wanted to let him know that any parent who is volunteering at school needs to be mindful of the kids' feelings.

Really?! YES. Really!!

Today, I came across this post circulating in cyberspace. It is about Bill Gates and his 11 rules that every kid should know. Rule 1 is "Life is not fair - get used to it!" I thought of G and how I heard it from him first and how he got into trouble for saying it!

Coincidentally, yesterday, I read an article about how we are the worst parents ever! Apparently, we are raising "feel good" and super sensitive children who have lost a sense of reality. Personally, I wouldn't make such blanket statements and it is quite frustrating that my generation's parenting abilities have been questioned and criticized at random by all sorts of sources. My argument has always been that we, as parents in this particular information age, have more challenges to deal with than our parents ever had!

But I digress.

Coming back to today, it was crazy hot summer weather in Toronto. A couple of genius parents (one being me) decided to distribute popsicles to the kids on the playground. I had G's daughter come up to me wondering if there were any popsicles left. I went in search of Hans to find out if there were any popsicles leftover. Luckily, there was one available. I felt good about that!

G had almost the exact same words to say to his own daughter as he did 3 months ago to the other 2 girls.

But I felt like she shouldn't be the only one without a popsicle!

G reminded me that such is life!

I could see his point of view, but what age is an appropriate age for a child to know that hard fact about life. Could they not be a little ignorant and happy for as long as childhood lasts?!

Perhaps I took away a teachable moment from G; however, G had his moment...he let me know very smartly that I was an enabler as in enabling his daughter to eat junk food!

Bill Gates would be so proud of my friend G!

See! 2 friends who are parents and who have 2 different philosophies on raising children! And yet, we are all doing a terrible job of parenting our children?!

Did someone say life is not fair?!