The Numbering of The Eggs

So, I promised to continue my little holiday rant. I know you've been waiting on the edge of your seat.

If you do not have young children or your children are so young that they do not yet hunt Easter eggs then you may not be familiar with this concept. Go ahead and say a prayer of thanksgiving now.

What I am speaking of is the "Numbering of The Eggs". This is implemented differently by different teachers but the basic concept is the same. And that concept would be to keep the egg hunt fair, to make sure everyone gets the same number of eggs. Generally speaking, this involves marking all of the eggs with numbers and then children are given a number to find. For example, Johnny finds only the eggs marked 4, Sally finds only the eggs marked 5, etc.

Now, I should go ahead and issue my disclaimer at this point. Seeing as how I am the-mother-of-a-girl and the-mother-of-a-child-with-a-physical-disability (that one doesn't flow off the tongue quite so easily, literally or figuratively, LOL!) I can appreciate that the "Numbering of The Eggs" keeps my children from being trampled on the playground. That's about all I appreciate about it.

Seriously. We have to mark up the pretty eggs with black sharpie to keep our kids from hurting each other to try and get them first. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? We didn't have to number our eggs when we were kids. And, gasp!, we didn't all find an equal number of eggs either. And, by the way, we all lived. Some of us became productive members of society. Those that didn't, I don't think had anything to do with the eggs. And if it did, then maybe they just weren't destined to be productive members of society. I'm just saying.

And, heaven forbid that everyone doesn't find an equal number of eggs. I mean what might happen to little Sally's psyche if little Johnny found 2 more eggs than her? What would that do to her? Here's a thought- maybe we should find out. Maybe if we quit teaching our kids that everything was fair then they would quit expecting everything to be fair. Maybe, just maybe, they might quit feeling so entitled to everything that little Johnny has because they don't understand that little Johnny has rich grandparents that invented oil and they can buy him a private Lear jet but they aren't getting one- EVER. Maybe.

Cynical? I'm sure. But seriously. Seriously. I get so very tired of saying "Life isn't Fair". God did not promise us an equitable life. I believe that is what my father said. I agree.

Maybe the answer for this up and coming generation of self-important little people is a real good glimpse of "not fair". Maybe we can start with losing the Numbering of The Eggs. Maybe, we can teach them that how ever many you find, that's how many you get. And maybe then we can teach them that sometimes, even though you could find more, you don't need any more. So, stop hunting and enjoy what you found. And maybe we could then teach them that sometimes you can help somebody else out and find a couple eggs for them. Not because you have to but because they need help and you want to be the one to do it.

Isn't that what their grandparents learned? And their great-grandparents before them? Why, oh why, are we not teaching our kids these same lessons?

I don't get it. I don't have the answers. I am far from a perfect mother. But I can say that my children do not have to have The Numbering of The Eggs to keep from running over the other kids on the Egg Hunt. And they know that whining about someone else getting more eggs than them will most likely result in me taking all of their eggs to the trash. At least that's a start.