The Justice Utopia

So, I had never thought about it too much, but the other day, I was thinking about the fact that my parents raised me in a sort of perfectly just utopia. I was thinking about this because of my parents paying off the last portion of our car loan and writing a receipt that says, "For financial integrity and responsibility." That's pure awesome. Honestly, if it would have been a post-it note on a Ding-Dong that said "For financial integrity and responsibility," I would have been overjoyed as well. From my very first memories to today, my parents were incredibly fair, consistent, giving, and systematic.

In my opinion, as a parent, you kind of have two options: prepare your kids for how life should be OR prepare your kids for how life is. We've all seen the parents who prepare kids for how life is. The mom who puts the toy back on the shelf and says, "We don't have any money right now," and when the kid starts to get upset says, "Well I don't know what to tell you. Life's not fair." Or the Dad in line to check out at the grocery store who gets his kid to shut up by throwing a candy bar on the conveyor belt. It's bad behavior, but as adults, when we whine enough, we can usually get a candy bar (or something analogous in our adult situation).

Kids who are raised being prepared for how life is are... well, just that. Prepared to live within a broken society's broken standards. The good news is, they'll be just fine when they start school. They'll be used to life being unfair. Heck, they'll be the kid making sure it's unfair for everyone. Their hearts won't be broken every five minutes and they'll be tough enough for this life.

My parents chose the "Road Less Parented" though. They raised my sister and me in a Justice Utopia. It wasn't like we got everything we wanted and were totally happy all of the time. BUT we were learning how to live life how it SHOULD BE. There were expectations. Oh... so many expectations. By two and four, MacKenzie and I were better behaved and more accountable than most adults. Sometimes when I check out at the grocery store, I still get excited neck prickles when I see candy I want. When we were kids, we were never allowed to ask for candy, toys, etc. or it was just known that we wouldn't get any. I'm not even talking fit throwing. I'm saying that we weren't allowed to say, "Oh father dearest, may I please have a candy bar?" Except when the neck prickles got the best of me. I'd hold my breath to keep them at bay, but when they took over I'd gasp, "Caaaandy bar?" Dad would just frown softly and shake his head no. But oh the glorious days when I could keep the neck prickles at bay, and Dad would look into eyes and smile and say, "Would you like a piece of candy?" Oh what a glorious day. That's how life should work.

But it doesn't.

I remember some of my first glimpses on the other side of Justice Utopia. One of my first memories outside Justice Utopia was an McLaughlin Farm Park summer camp. And that particular year... when I was about four... they had... wait for it... BABY KITTENS! And my summer camp class got to hold them and pet them! Except, all of the little a-holes in my summer camp class pushed ahead of me, grabbing the kittens, and cutting in line. My first reaction was for my eyes to tear up a bit, but then I said NO. I knew how I would react to this. So I stepped back, and let the other kids play with them. Surely I would be handsomely rewarded for my kindness and patience. After a few minutes the counselor said, "Ok, I'm putting the kittens away."

Whoa, what?

I marched up to her to file my grievance. "Um, hi," I said. "There has been a mistake. The other kids pushed me out of the way, and I never got to pet or hold the kittens."

This is the point where my parents would have said, "Good job waiting your turn, Ali" and I would have gotten some awesome one-on-one baby kitten time that trumped anytime the greedy kids got. But do you know what that camp counselor said?

"Sorry. Maybe you should pushed to the front too."

What? That STILL ticks me off when I think about it. But that's life, right? The trouble with raising kids to live life how it SHOULD BE is that when they go into the real world (I'm talking Kindergarten, not the work force), their worlds will crumble a little. You'll have to give them talks entitled:

"Why not EVERYONE wants to hear you sing 'Meet in the Middle' by Diamond Rio."
"Why the kid on the bus stole your glove."
"Why Brittney Schoen won't share her colored pencils and pointed out that she has exactly four more lines in the 2nd grade play than you do."

Or, in my poor sister MacKenzie's case (she wanted to cling to Justice Utopia even more than me):
"Why you can't choke kids in your kindergarten class when they give you insincere apologies."

But when you raise kids in Justice Utopia, they want to propagate it. They want to reward hard work, root for the underdog, and defeat the bad guys. This world will make them cynical, but they'll always fight just a little bit harder than the rest of the world to spread the joy of Justice Utopia just a bit farther.

In honor of my parents, I'll always fight for Justice Utopia. I know that neck prickles, whether for a grocery check-out candy bar or an overpriced purse or electronic item are never worth giving into, and that God is smiling down at my self-control and he will offer me something even better. Because God parents to how life SHOULD BE too.