When Life Isn't Fair

Me and my #2 son Madison

My son recently auditioned for his first school play. For five days, we listened to him practice his lines and sing one of the songs from Alice in Wonderland...the Musical. He was pretty excited about the opportunity to audition even though I talked him down from auditioning for the part of the Mad Hatter because of the magnitude of that role.

Audition day arrives and the pods in the school were filled with students ready to audition. Luckily enough, Madison had an early audition time, so he only had to wait about 2 hours. On the ride home, he said that he felt good about his audition, even though his voice was low during some of the speaking parts.


The follow Monday when the cast was posted Madison's name was nowhere to be found. Although he wasn’t sad about not making the cut, one thing that he was puzzled about was the fact that the musical director and ever teacher that had a child audition for the play made it.  The musical director’s daughter even captured the lead role! Madison did not recognize this as being ‘unfair’ but I certainly did.

My first impulse was to call the principal and just inquire about this, as Madison told me that during the play orientation students were told that just because kids auditioning had parents that worked at the school didn’t guarantee them a part in the play. My husband interjected and told me that although it wasn’t fair that this is indeed how life is.  He went further to say how our son’s always get to play the entire basketball games, as their dad is the coach.  This was an eye-opener, as I never really thought about how other parents on the basketball teams must feel, seeing our son’s play entire games while their children ride the bench or get limited playing time.

It seems as if we can deal with life being unfair, until that hand is dealt to our own kids.  After much reflection and discussion with other parents, no phone call was made, but I sat down with Madison and told him that sometimes in life what may be unfair to others, whether it is by way of nepotism or long-standing friendships may have its benefits to the individual on the receiving end of the opportunity granted.  I told him that in my life I’ve been the beneficiary of some of these gifts; every job that I’ve ever gotten has been because of a dear friend’s reference or by way of them having inside knowledge of a job opportunity.  To those friends, Joy Arnold Russell, Patricia Smith, and Tracey McLeod I say thank you.

And so…instead of looking at some of life’s little moments as not being fair maybe we should look at them as platforms from which our hopes for success and accomplishment of our personal goals continue to spring eternal.