Parenting is not about being equal – it is about being fair.  And being fair is far more difficult than being equal. I am not just talking about between siblings but between you and your spouse,you and our extended families, you and yourself.

When you have children, no matter how hard you try, you are always convinced that it is easier than it looks as you watch others parent. Those of us who have or are parenting know the truth. Nothing about parenting is easy. The little boogers are just lying in wait to trip you up!  The endless activity is to remain one step ahead of them.  How in the world did they get so smart? Or cunning? Or creative?  Oh yeah… you are their parent…bahahaha!!!

And all that drivel that says “I love each of my kids the same”…. no you don’t and neither do I. And you shouldn’t.  You can’t. Not because of who you are, but because of who they are! Each of them are different and require different things from their parent(s). How can you love unequal things, equally?  This makes us nervous, because we assume that if we can’t be equal, then we are not being fair…. are you lost in the circle yet?

I have said it and so have you -”I love each of you the same”.  There is even the joke that is passed around in families that says “mom told me I was her favorite” and parenting columns that say to tell each child separately that they are your favorite.  Ummm.. I am thinking not. How about, I love you for who you are, for who you are becoming, for being who you are intended to be? I love you …. because I love you.  Why do there have to be reasons?

I have four vastly different but incredibly similar children.  I thought I was supposed to love them the same.  Each would evoke the same response from me in the same situation. I would extend myself to each of them the exact same way. Wow – I was incredibly naive. Clueless. Imagine my dismay when the same discipline  didn’t work on all four of them.  Imagine my surprise when the same encouragement was not received by each of them in the same manner.

Enter fairness.  At some point my DH and I had to begin to understand what each of these little creations needed from us and how we extended that to them with fairness.  Don’t misunderstand me to say that we didn’t have equilateral household rules, we did. What I am talking about here is the development of their personhood.  Their being. What they think of themselves.  How they present themselves. How they achieve and how they fail.  The end result was desired to be the same, a successful adult,  but the method of motivation and reinforcement had to change to match each of them.  They wanted total equality …. and even today as adults, some of them still do.  We decided to strive for fairness.
My family is facing a situation where equality is being asked for from some.  Where one member of our unit is behaving in a manner that the rest of the family feels is not in the best interest of this family member, or the rest of our family unit.  Equality is being begged for by siblings.  As parents, we are struggling to keep things fair… maintain the household/family rules while allowing this sibling to their reach their full potential.  We are running out of time as no one in our family is any longer a “child”.  Our influence is close to reaching a point of being lost. We are sticking to our guns.  It is constant, painful work.  If we could be equal here, the job would be done.  But we have to try to be fair based on personality. It is not always clear what is fair and what is equal, but because we love our children “because we love them”, we will keep searching for fairness.