wrote:

Oooohhh...I hated it when my parents told me that. When I said
"That's not fair!!" they'd say "Life isn't fair." Irritated me to no
end. It *felt* like a cop-out.

I'm not saying you are copping out...I'm merely saying it's how it
felt to me when my parents used it.

My kids appear to feel something similar about my making empathetic statements
when they're really mad. They take the line that if I was really that sorry for
them, I'd darned well let them do whatever it was. Childish logic of course,
but ... wait, they ARE children! :-)

--Helen