Dynamically opposed

*sigh*

The kids came home from school yesterday.

The two big girls were terribly upset.

Back in May, when everything was awful, forms came out and money due for the year six shirts. You know those shirts, with all of the kids’ names printed on the back?

Yeah, those ones.

$25 each.

If you have one kid in year six, okay, but three kids in the same year equals $75 and at the time, we could not afford it.

We had just flipped the bill for three year six children to attend camp.

I explained to the kids and they were cool with it.

They were cool with it until yesterday.

Yesterday the school gave AJ a shirt.

They did not do the same for the girls.

They told the girls they were not to be upset or angry with AJ because he got a shirt and they didn’t.

The girls were upset.

I was upset.

It threw the dynamics out tremendously.

When I approached AJ about it, he told me he was given the shirt because he deserved it.

This opens so many issues up for me.

Everyone makes allowances for AJ because he is not with his birth mother.

He has lived in our home for the last eight years and I have worked hard to treat he and Mal the same as the others.

We balance everything out at home.

Everything.

Nobody considers what the girls have given up.

Nobody stops to think that their lives changed the day the boys moved in.

It was expected that they would accept them into their lives and they have.

They have done beautifully.

Things like this, where AJ is given something and the girls’ miss out, it’s just plain unfair and it is showing favouritism and it makes the girls self worth plummet and it throws the scales out; in AJ’s favour.

The giving of the shirt to one of the children and not the other two was not the right thing to do.

In my eyes, it should be an all or nothing kind of thing.

Not only was it inappropriate but belittling the girls’ response and telling them they were not to be upset was wrong too.

Of course they would be upset.

They are twelve and now their cousin has something they wanted but were big enough to let go because I couldn’t afford the stupid seventy five bucks in the first place

AJ did not consider, for one moment, the impact it would have on the girls, instead he considered how it would effect him.

He told the teacher the twins would be angry with him and the teacher’s response was to tell the girls they could not be upset.

I’m not sure what to do.

We could jump up and down and tell the school how we feel about the issues this has brought on or we could just confiscate the shirt and not allow AJ to wear it.

Either way, it feels crappy.