It's Not Fair!

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What does it mean when something is unfair? The dictionary definition of the word unfair is “beyond what is proper or fitting; disproportionate; not conforming to approved standards, as of justice, honesty, or ethics.” A person’s judgment of fairness may be influenced by their wants and their desires, leading to a biased sense of injustice. When someone feels they are being treated unfairly, they often feel powerless; they feel their opinion is not being given due attention, or they feel they are not treated equally. My mother taught me to stand up for myself, and she never let me reach the point of feeling unfairly treated. She taught me that there is always a way to solve a problem before it is too late, before you become the victim. So, I try to measure the fairness of a situation by the latter part of the definition of unfair: “not conforming to approved standards, as of justice, honesty, or ethics.” I could not think of a topic to write about until I asked my mother, and she reminded that I was treated unfairly. When I was three years old, my father walked out of his house, and in doing so he walked out of the lives of his wife and his two young children; he would never return to stay.

My parents were not career-oriented. My mother was very family-oriented, and her dream had always been to be a “Susie Homemaker,” taking care of the kids and the house. It killed her when she had to work full-time to support the family, but she loved us, and because of that it did not matter to her. My father, however, was a very different character. To this day it is impossible to say what my father thought about anything. He was abused as a child, and he grew into a damaged, insecure adult. He never wanted to grow up; he viewed his marriage to my mother as a game he won. He is a “Passive-Aggressive” abuser, meaning he manipulates you so that you always think that you are the one committing wrong, and he mentally and emotionally abused my mother. My parents’ entire marriage was filled with lies, and not even decent ones. My father would lie about something painfully obvious, almost like, “Oh, you spilled spaghetti sauce on your shirt.” “No I did not.” The only difference with his lies was that they were about more important issues, like money.

My mother lived through this alone for nine years. After nine years of marriage, she gave birth to me. Two years later, my brother was born. By this time my mother had become the worker in the family. My father could not keep a job. He was an extremely intelligent man, and he had an amazing memory. He believed he was better than everyone else, and had no respect for any employer. When I was three years old, he told my mother he wanted to move to North Carolina and look for work there. My mother told him to go ahead, and she said that when he found a job, we would move up there too. He was mad about this, implying she was irrational. So he left.

He never did come back into my life. At one point my mother called him and asked him to come back. She told him he would not have to work, that she just wanted us to be a family. But he would not. Up until I was eight or nine I would see him once in a while. My brother and I would go with him for a little bit of time. My mother thought this was good for us. She never imagined the way he would treat his children; she thought he would be the same father my grandfather was to her, but my father was too broken to even be a decent man. I never had fun with him; he would sit in front of the television all day and all night, and he would get whatever he wanted for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was actually being treated unfairly. My father did not really care what my brother and I did unless it interfered with what he was doing. In those cases he would yell at us and then go back to watching a show. He honestly did not care if we felt powerless, and he did not even want to take our opinions into consideration. My father is the epitome of unfair. He never supported us. It has now been about eight years since I last saw him. He has never bothered to contact me, except for one or two birthdays. He never sent money for child support. He was never the father figure in my life. I do not think he even cared that he deprived my brother and me so much. But it is even more amazing that I do not care.

I believe my father leaving was a good thing. Legally, ethically, and morally it was unfair to me, but I believe I have had a better upbringing because of it. If my parents were still married, I would be a different person than I am today.

I am a very religious person. I do not believe justice will prevail in every case; this is evident in the world around us. However, in cases when I am treated unfairly, I do not bother myself worrying about them. A Bible verse in Luke 18: 8 promises, “He will cause justice to be done.” God may not bring about justice right now, but with the political, environmental and social conditions of this world deteriorating, like justice not prevailing every time, God will have to intervene to stop humans from destroying themselves. Psalms 37:10, 29 promise, “Just a little while longer and the wicked one will be no more; the righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.” There will come a time when humans have the opportunity to live in a peaceful world filled with righteous people that will be free from unfair, wicked men and women, and this hope helps me cope with any unfair situation I face.