“The abbott should avoid all favoritism….But the abbott is free, if he sees fit, to change anyone’s rank as justice demands…. ‘God shows no partiality among persons’ (Romans 2:11). Only in this are we distinguished in his sight: if we are found better than others in good works and in humility” (RB 2.16-22).
Christian fairness is going to look different from atheist equality, because Christian fairness tends toward the justice of God, not the sameness of human beings. Christian fairness does not erase your own natural preferences. You can love your children equally and still prefer babies sleeping to babies screaming. Each child will be difficult to deal with at some phase of life, for all sorts of reasons. Each one also has innate qualities that you want to encourage and cultivate. Each one thrives in different conditions because each one has a unique personality. Part of Christian love is exactly the effort to detect and develop the qualities that God has bestowed on each individual.
But with all sorts of variation in the details, the same fundamental principles should apply to everyone, including Mom and Dad. Encourage good habits, but be cautious about proclaiming laws, because your children will soon be clever enough to interpret those laws and apply them back to you in ways that you failed to foresee. You’ll excuse younger children from tasks that are beyond their ability (but those will be the jobs they beg for). You’ll exempt older children from restrictions that are no longer needed at their age (but expect relapses on the way to responsibility). Fairness doesn’t mean that everyone is the same. Fairness means that you don’t require of someone else what you exempt yourself from attempting.
Even if you aim to foster the same virtues in boys and girls, there will be divergences of practice that will be preferable for all concerned. A boy shouldn’t be excused from cleaning up the kitchen because he’s a boy. But if he’d rather pick up dog poop from the yard, why not let him take the chore that no one else wants? A girl shouldn’t be allowed to primp forever in front of the mirror. But if she manages to get dressed on time in feminine attire, with her hair done on her own, doesn’t she deserve the accessible seat in the car? Maleness and femaleness are bestowed by God, but masculinity and femininity must be cultivated by parents who recognize the worth of each.
If one child puts away the clean dishes unasked, when all the other children run away from the kitchen, it is absolutely fair to praise that one, and to call attention to the difference in behavior. The other children are sure to speak up and inform you of any unacknowledged virtuous acts of their own that you might have failed to praise. The best thing you can do to foster virtues in your children is to be on the lookout not for their faults but for their good deeds, and to be sure to call attention to those. Each thirsty little soul can be gratified with a word of encouragement, and those words make all the difference.
Sometimes parents begin to favor one child over the others because circumstances funnel the family in that direction; or because one child is needier; or one is more demanding. Fairness requires parents to remain vigilant and to recalibrate resources as needed. Explain to the children what your goal is. They can contribute to figuring out ways to achieve a balance, and sometimes when you involve them in decisions, you discover that their priorities are different from your own. Let them negotiate terms with each other: why not? There’s more than one way to resolve a logistical imbalance.
Actual favoritism is an insidious vice that results from identity issues on the part of the parent. Sometimes a parent will favor a child who embodies an ideal. A mother may favor the daughter who is everything she wishes she could have been when she was a girl. The other daughter, who resembles her in other ways, perhaps with traits that the mother dislikes in herself, becomes the inferior one. Both daughters are hobbled as a result: one by the tangled expectation of success; the other by the cutting expectation of failure.
Christian identity allows for differences of talent, feature, personality. Only Jesus is the definition of God as man. But each of us is an example of God at work in a human being. To accept this is to let drop the crushing burden of idealism. If the Holy Spirit is at work in us to develop the traits that God desires, we don’t have to be so terribly anxious to produce the traits that the world admires. Yes, we do have to make an effort to participate in the work of God. But this effort is not a desperate attempt to win recognition. Our hope is not in our ability to make something of ourselves, but in the promise of God that he will bring his work in us to completion.
Sometimes God’s work in our children is harder to accept. Their trials wring our hearts. But no handicap they may labor under is insurmountable in an ultimate sense. We grieve when we see them suffer. But we retain hope that God is working out some good purpose for each one. Therefore we don’t flog them on to outperform everyone else, if they have the traits associated with worldly success. Nor do we give up on them, if they lack those traits. For all the anxieties and challenges along the path of life, the destination is assured: that is the promise of Christ, in which we place our hope.
