Successes and failures are part of growing up

These are words that resound in my house every single day. Many times a day, and on weekends many, many times a day.

I have three daughters — one is already a teenager, and the other two are getting there. If they’re to be believed, absolutely nothing in the world is fair.

The choice of menu is not fair. (Nisha likes Salli Chicken, I don’t. It’s not fair.)

The morning routine is not fair. (Aaliya gets to sleep four minutes more than me. It’s not fair.)

The books I fetch from the library are not fair. (They are more Naima’s kind of books than mine. It’s not fair.)

It’s not that I don’t try. Every wedge of cake that enters the house is divided with geometric precision. Every crepe ordered at the restaurant is cut into three identical triangles. If Aaliya got an item of jewellery when she turned 10, so do Nisha and Naima two years later.

Still, much as I would like it, things can’t always be equal. And often, they aren’t. After all, it’s Lady Luck who distributes the goodies — and she does so without the help of a protractor or ruler.

Like in most other families, there’s a constant see-saw. Two of my daughters are class reps in school, one isn’t. One of my girls has a part in a snazzy professional play, the other two don’t. One of my twins zips through her schoolwork with ease, the other one frets and stresses.

At every “It’s not fair” juncture, I try to offer comfort and reassurance. “It’s okay. Sometimes the good things happen to you. Sometimes they happen to your sisters. Everyone can’t win every time. But in the long run they even out.”

All of which is true – 99 per cent of the time.

Last week, we hit the exception. A situation in which I didn’t dare imagine the consequences if Lady Luck behaved capricious.

All three of my daughters play an instrument. Aaliya plays the violin, Nisha plays the piano and Naima plays the cello. They — and about 40 other students — are part of the Special Music School run by the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA). All these children attend numerous hours of classes weekly, and practise daily. They are often forced to make difficult choices — to choose music over birthday parties, extra practice over TV time. And they do so with good grace.

Every year, the music school has a grand concert featuring the Children’s Orchestra and some soloists — and there’s always anxiety about who gets chosen. A few weeks ago, I opened my mailbox and felt sick. There was an email informing us that this year only a handful of soloists would play in the concert.

Doom and gloom. Aaliya, Nisha and Naima were despondent — and so was I. That none of the girls would be chosen was bad. That just one would be selected was worse. And the possibility that two would be picked made me want to puke.

For once, it really wouldn’t be fair. All three slogged. All three put their heart into their music. “But then, so do all the other children in the programme,” whispered the voice of reason. “It’s not going to be fair in any case. Ughh.”

The auditions were held and slowly the verdicts trickled in. The cello teacher told us that Naima had made it. The violin teacher told us that Aaliya had made it. Then, two nerve-wracking days later, the piano teacher sent us a message. Nisha had made it too.

I felt able to breathe again.

I also felt a bit of a fraud. After all, this was the hurdle that I’d been trying to prepare my daughters to face, but found so impossible to confront myself. No wonder I hadn’t been able to teach them those lessons — about small successes and failures being a part of growing up; about learning to be happy for others; about not obsessing with fairness all the time — because I first needed to learn them myself.

(The writer is an author of children’s books, a journalist, and mother of three daughters.)

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