Too little
First account wins
“Your sister told me already. Give them back.”
The first speaker receives an unexamined advantage.
Fairness
Give each account a hearing before assigning the verdict.
An impartial disposition to give relevant interests and evidence their due.
Fairness in a family gives relevant needs, claims, and evidence their due. Equal consideration does not require identical portions, privileges, or assistance. A reason for treating situations differently should be more substantial than which child makes the easiest case.
Fairness gives reasons that can be explained
The loudest account reaches the kitchen first and acquires the status of an official report. By the time the other child arrives, the trial seems to be over. Fairness reopens the hearing without promising that every account will prove equally accurate.
Finding the balance in Fairness
An illustrative everyday situation
Two children want the same shared set of markers. You have heard only one explanation of what was agreed.
A fitting response
Hearing and deciding
“Tell me what each of you understood the plan to be.”
You consider the accounts and make a proportionate arrangement.
Pursued too far
Identical at any cost
“Exactly three minutes each, even if neither wants that.”
Mechanical equality replaces attention to the actual need.
A fair decision needs relevant reasons, not a guarantee that nobody will dislike it.
When the situation changes
If one child needs a tool for an agreed task while another wants it for casual play, different access may be reasonable. Explain the reason without ranking the children’s worth.
What Fairness makes possible
Children can hear how a decision was reached and point out a missed fact. You may still have to decide; listening does not transfer every adult responsibility to a family vote.
Fairness in ordinary life
Making room for different needs
Two children want to join a shared activity. You consider what each needs to participate; equal concern may call for different help.
Reconsidering a rule
If a family arrangement no longer fits, explain the change rather than invent a fault to justify it.
Nearby virtues, different work
Discernment
Discernment examines the evidence; fairness asks whether all relevant claims received their due.
Compassion
Compassion responds to distress; fairness also considers a quieter person whose needs attract less immediate sympathy.
Fairness and its counterfeits
Counterfeit: Convenient peace
Giving in to the most persistent person can look like fairness while rewarding pressure. Consider the less audible claim.
Counterfeit: Family arithmetic
Identical treatment can look impartial while ignoring a relevant difference. Explain the distinction you are using.
How to cultivate Fairness
Hear the account that has not arrived first.
Name the reason for a difference in treatment.
Correct a decision when a consequential fact was missed.
Try it today
Do not force children to negotiate safety, mistreatment, or essential needs with someone who is harming them. An adult may need to protect first and hear details separately.
For a minor shared-resource decision, ask each person what matters to them before deciding. Give a short reason for the arrangement you choose.
At home
Hear each account before deciding what is fair.
Questions worth returning to
Which account did I find easiest to believe, and why?
Would my reason still make sense if the children’s positions were reversed?
Keep the practice proportionate
Do not force children to negotiate safety, mistreatment, or essential needs with someone who is harming them. An adult may need to protect first and hear details separately.
About these practices · DisclaimerQuotations and further reading
Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.
Was her point of view the only possible one with regard to this marriage?
George Eliot · Middlemarch · chapter XXIX; narrator · excerpt
The narrator questions Dorothea’s single account of her marriage. A parent can similarly ask which relevant perspective a persuasive first story leaves out.
nor does he put aside good words because of the man.
Confucius · Analects · XV.22; Confucius speaking · James Legge translation · excerpt
Confucius separates a good point from the person making it. A child’s earlier mistake does not make every later explanation unworthy of consideration.
Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
Benjamin Franklin · Autobiography · Part II, plan of moral perfection; Justice · excerpt
Franklin includes omissions as well as injuries. Notice the quiet child whose opportunity or need is easily overlooked while resolving the loudest complaint.
A multitude of privileges, or rather indulgences, can exist with a total disregard of the child's rights.
Kate Douglas Wiggin · Children’s Rights: A Book of Nursery Logic · The Rights of the Child · excerpt
Wiggin distinguishes indulgence from justice. A gift or privilege cannot substitute for hearing a child’s relevant needs and account.
For, unless you perfectly understand the principle from which anyone acts, how should you know if he acts ill?
Epictetus · Enchiridion · 45 · Elizabeth Carter translation · excerpt
Epictetus distinguishes an observed act from a judgment about its motive. Give a child’s explanation a hearing before treating an inference as a settled intention.
Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil:
John Stuart Mill · On Liberty · II, Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion · excerpt
Mill warns against suppressing part of a contested truth. A useful family account can retain inconvenient qualifications without pretending every claim is equally sound.
To those who are good (to me), I am good; and to those who are not good (to me), I am also good;
Laozi · Tao Te Ching · 49.2 · James Legge translation · excerpt
Legge describes goodwill beyond those who return it. A parent’s considerate treatment should not depend on which child currently seems most grateful.
Continue exploring
Take these ideas into everyday life
Read freely, follow the nineteen-virtue program, or adapt this collection in My Virtues. These are practices for your own choices, never a scorecard for a child.