This is what Adam emphatically stated to me with his face all frowny and pinched. He stomped his way over to the couch, sat down with all the force his little body could muster, crossed his arms and stared up at me with his AngryFace.

What brought on his declaration of terribleness? The injustice that set off his dramatic production? We were to sit down and read "Animals in the Snow" for his homework. But Adam had other plans in mind which involved a t.v. and Sponge Bob Square Pants. Being six, the unfairness of having to plow through three minutes of reading before watching the porous yellow sponge was just too much for him. "I have a TERRIBLE life!" he declared, "Just Terrible! "

I suppose I should have sat down and told him of all the children in the world who have nothing. The millions of children who die each day because they lack essential things like food and clean water. The children who die from childhood diseases, diseases that we think nothing of, because they have no access to medicine. The children who are orphaned and left to fend for themselves on the street because there is no one to care for them.

I should have told him about the parents who hold their child dying of malnutrition while across the globe childhood obesity is growing at an alarming rate. Or the children who want to go to school but can't - because they can't afford to - they need to work to help maintain their family, or they are simply the wrong race or the wrong sex.

I should have told him about all the terrible things that are going on in the world. The wars, the killing, the hurting, the corruptness.....the real unfairness of it all. But he'll learn all that in due time.

Instead I sat down, put my arm around him and said "somedays it all seems unfair to me too".