Is there something which happened to you many years ago which still irks you when you think about it?

When we were children, my older sister joined the Brownies then after a while she gave up. My father wouldn't permit me to join because my sister gave up, how unfair is that?

What injustices were done to you?

The only incident i can recall, is when i was 12 and my 14 stepbrother ran up a massive phone bill on his mobile, so my mum banned me from having a mobile until i was 15!

I was the 'uncool' kid at school, because i didn't have the latest technology!

My list would be huge! My two older brothers were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted but because I was a girl and the youngest I had to put up with many rectrictions. I probably declared "That is SO unfair" on a daily basis. I can see where my parents were coming from but the truth is I was far more responsible and mature as a teenager then either of my brothers who got caught up in drunken brawls and whathaveyou. My mum has since admitted that I would have rebelled less if I had been given more freedom and there would have been less friction between us all.
Hmm now I'm a mum of two (one of each sex) I'm hoping I can treat them equally but already I'm worrying about my daughter entering her teens and how I can keep her safe without going down the path of "you aren't going out wearing that", "I forbid you to go out with that goth/punk/whoever". Will I be able to keep my cool? I really don't know!

My mother passed away fairly young and my elder sister got married shortly thereafter. I soon found myself in charge of the household chores, while working part time and going to university full time.
My "it was so unfair" was how much I did around that place versus how much my younger sibs did.
My brother, in particular, was bad. For example, he worked summers for my dad and needed a freshly pressed shirt every day. He would toss the dirty ones into the bottom of his cupboard until he had none left, throw them all in the wash (about a dozen of them) and then whine the next day that he had no clean shirts. I would be expected to drop every thing and spend hours washing and ironing these blasted shirts.
He had me over a barrel too, since my dad insisted that he wear them, and would get onto me if he didn't have any. I would get 'yes, it's not very nice what he did but I'm not letting him go see my clients without a clean shirt so you have to do them', or variations on that theme.
So even though my brother would get his fingers slapped, he would do it time and time again, because he was never made to do it himself.

I think you are correct there skunkee. If your dad made him wash and iron them himself (just once) he would have been more thoughtful.

My daughter (when she was about 14) complained about the way I washed her clothes. I went out and bought her a wash basket, put it in her room and told her to wash her clothes herself.
I dont remember how long I let her but once I began doing her washing again, she never complained.

I do believe though that these experiences make us stronger.

Dad was very concerned about presenting a crisp image in front of his customers, and knew that my brother wouldn't be able to do that without practice. Therefore I was stuck with it. I was also washing and ironing my dad's shirts at the time too, and he always went through two a day.
To this day I refuse to iron for anything except a wedding, or something equally important. My husband's shirts are chosen for their wrinkle-resistance, pulled out of the dryer warm and hung up so they don't need to be ironed!

I am wondering if my siblings have a scoreboard of major grudges against me lurking somewhere. I am the oldest girl of four children, so, as you might suppose, I did my share of things around the house.
I had a lot of freedom but did a lot of stuff.
I know I drove rather early, but hauled the siblings around once the folks knew I was competent. Imagine how happy they must have been when I began driving at sixteen and took the others out of their hair.
I got to go out with my friends a lot more, but, I worked more around the house to justify it than they did.

I got to stay home one summer from the interminable family trip in the van camping, but, I had a job and took care of all of their bills and the house and animals.

Perhaps I am the smug older sister type after all, but, I don't think any of them resented my 'privileges' much.

The only small thing I know I might have appreciated was a bit more enthusiasm about my accomplishments and grades, but, I understood that, in order to be fair, they basically assumed I'd do well, and also, paid a lot of attention the kids who weren't doing as well. That's fine...I see parents who pay too much attention to their children's grades and things and it backfires on them occasionally.

My best friend's family had a situation that struck me as unfair but, maybe it was just one of those things that happens in blended families like fairy tales and real life.
She lost her mother when she was very young and her father remarried rather quickly. Her stepmother was very different looking with long dark hair and her daughter was cute and had the same type of hair. My friend and her sister had straight white blond hair that was fine and wouldn't take a curl if you dumped a whole bottle of whatever on it. So, she'd cut their hair very short like the bowl on your head style, or the Dutch Painter boy style as we called it, and let her biological daughter's hair grow long and luxurious.
In those days, most girls I knew had to cajole and plead their cases to their mothers to let their hair grow long because they'd tell us it looked messy and we'd let it go in our faces. That was the point! I mean, having long hair was not only cool, but you could hide behind it!
So, these girls had these horrid haircuts for a few years, dark framed glasses as they were the cheapest kind, and their new sister had long luxurious dark hair with waves in it and never had hers cut!

I don't know if they hold that against her, but, I know they noticed the difference.

I was passed over for one of only 3 positions in a new graduate program because my mentor, who would have had the final say had he been there, was out of town at a conference for my entrance interview. The professor who took his place was literally the only teacher in the department who didn't like me.
There was no appeals process.
I never was able to go back and try again because real life interfered and I had to get a job which precluded me from going bacl to school.
I often wonder if I actually would have been able to pursue my dreams if I'd gotten in that program; I try not to be bitter about it, but it's hard. I can't say that man's name without uttering a curse in the same breath.
I do intend to go back when my kids are in school if I can, but it's been so long (more than 15 years), I'll have a lot of catch-up work to do. But it's never too late, right? (Humor me here... )

When I was a teenager, I hated the restrictions my parents placed on me, which were actually relatively few, but my friends were all guys and at least a year older than me, most of them 2-3 years older than me, and I always thought it was so unfair that they couldn't "trust me" to just hang out late with my friends. In retrospect, of course, I can understand being worried that your 16 year old daughter is out at 1:00am with a group of 6 older guys... But at the time it really upset me, because I was not doing anything illegal, I wasn't doing anything untoward and I wasn't doing anything dangerous, they were my friends, and we just liked to hang out, play video games and D&D... And I always had to go home when the night was only half over.

And the next injustice was that my little sister didn't have to face the same issues. She's only a year and a half younger than me, and was two years behind me in school, and we shared a group of friends, so when she got to high school, all the little arguments I'd won against my parents (changing my curfew from midnight to 2:00 on weekends, for instance) Jen never had to deal with. Where when I was a sophomore, I was too young to stay out past midnight, Jen faced no such problem, especially if she was with me. Mom says it's because after two years of me hanging out with many of the same people, and dealing with my behavior, they had learned we were worthy of being trusted, so they gave Jen the benefit of the doubt at the outset instead of making her prove it the way they had me. But man did it upset me!!

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My list would be huge! My two older brothers were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted but because I was a girl and the youngest I had to put up with many rectrictions.

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Well, that sums me up pretty well too, Queenie! I hated that my older brothers could walk home from school socials but I had to be picked up - I understand it now but at the time it was soooo unfair cause I had a crush on B.T. who had to walk past my house and I could have walked home with him.

Isn't it interesting that when the question of unfairness is asked, most of us respond with family-related tales? Is this because we spend our formative years trying to make sense of our place in the world, and can only do that in the context of those nearest us, or are family members unfair to each other because they can?

As the eldest of four I was, as you would expect, the trailblazer and guinea pig. My brother, 3 years younger, got to do things at an earlier age than I. This was because (a)he was a boy, and (b)he was much less outgoing than I and my parents were pleased that he wanted to be social at all.

But the real unfairness came with my much-younger sisters (we were a two-level family, with a 6 year gap between the first two and the next two). The constant refrain of my young adult years was "But you would never have allowed me to do that / have that when I was their age". The answer was usually something that referred to the fact that times had changed, the family could afford it now, or that Mum was older and not bothered by it any more. I learnt to live with it.

My own daughter, with no siblings, still utters the constant refrain " That's not fair!" My response of my mother's usual reply of "No, it's dark" (think about it!) elicits the same "Aaaaagghhhh".

We probably think of family issues especially when one sibling is treated differently to another - all siblings ought to be treated the same, but it doesn't always happen.

Yes, thinking about it, as an only child, I can never remember thinking it or even feeling it.

Well, speaking as another only child, I always used to think it unfair that I didn't have any brothers and sisters - mainly because I never had the luxury of blaming things on someone else. I got blamed for everything even when I didn't do it.

For example, one day my mother told me that there were a number of strawberries ready to be picked in the strawberry patch but I was not to pick them as she wanted them for dinner that evening.

Later on, she came to me saying that the strawberries were gone and I got a thrashing for taking them. When I denied it, I got another trashing for lying about it. When I continued to deny it, my mother said, very sarcastically, "Oh, I suppose the dog ate them". Well, as it turned out, that's exactly what happened. After dinner that evening, we were sitting on the back lawn when the dog vomited up strawberries. My mother was amazed that the dog managed to eat them without leaving much evidence in the way of trampled plants, etc. Not long afterward, my mother witnessed the dog very carefully picking its way through the strawberry plants and gently sucking the fruit right off the plants.

Of course, I immediately pointed out my innocence and complained that I was unjustly beaten. All my mother said was, "Well, that's for all the times you got away with something". Now THAT'S unfair!

When my children complained that something wasn't fair I am afraid my stock reply was "Who said life was fair?".

Hmm...I could post lots of stuff here, but I'll keep it short.

When I was a teenager, we had a step-brother, and there is just me and my younger sister who is only a year and a half younger. My step-brother's chores consisted of things considered the males job anyway such as cutting the grass and taking out the trash. As for me and my sister, we had other chores.

I always considered it unfair because my sister's ONLY responsibility was to keep her room clean. Now I admit that just that chore alone was a stretch for her, but my responsibility was to do the laundry for everyone in the house, which meant hours of work a week.

I always had my chores done, and she never did--even though hers were minimal, and anytime we were left a list on Saturdays, it was always me that ended up doing the majority of it because she refused and I didn't want to get into trouble. Oh, and nothing was ever done to her for not doing her chores, she was still able to go out when she wanted to.