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A scientific experiment
I sat the family down at dinner last night for a little talk. "I have a confession to make. For the last week and a half, I have been running a little experiment."
On Rob's birthday, on the fifteenth of November, he opened his presents in the living room. All the ripped up wrapping paper was left in the middle of the living room floor. Ever since, I have not touched the paper and I have not commented on it. I wanted to see whether it would occur to anyone in this family to pick up that paper and throw it away.
It didn't occur to anyone. No one seemed to notice it. For thirteen days.
So, in our conversation last night, I simply pointed this out. "The thing is," I said, "I think you all walked past that paper without a second thought because you all assumed it was my job to pick it up and dispose of it, because I can't stand mess and it doesn't bother you. It has gotten to the point that I don't feel that anything would get done in this house unless I point it out to people and make them do it. And I don't want to do that anymore."
I told the girls that I had told them no less than four times yesterday to pick up their coats and put them in the coat box. We talked about the fact that we have a chore chart, and they had agreed that the chores I had asked them to do were reasonable (one daily chore and three weekly chores each), but that they were going undone. I asked them whether we should start applying consequences for undone chores, and if so, what they should be. Rob objected that maybe we weren't at that point yet, and instead we should give them a second chance. I thought privately that as one of the worst offenders in the family of failing to pick up after himself, Rob would naturally want a million second chances, but I agreed to let it go for now and see if people would more willingly do their chores, and we would re-visit the issues in two weeks. At that point, if things have not changes, I will insist on setting up a consequences system.
It was a good conversation, and a hard conversation. Both girls cried a lot.
This article that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sdn pointed to, about the unfair division of work at home, based on gender lines, seems particularly timely.
On Rob's birthday, on the fifteenth of November, he opened his presents in the living room. All the ripped up wrapping paper was left in the middle of the living room floor. Ever since, I have not touched the paper and I have not commented on it. I wanted to see whether it would occur to anyone in this family to pick up that paper and throw it away.
It didn't occur to anyone. No one seemed to notice it. For thirteen days.
So, in our conversation last night, I simply pointed this out. "The thing is," I said, "I think you all walked past that paper without a second thought because you all assumed it was my job to pick it up and dispose of it, because I can't stand mess and it doesn't bother you. It has gotten to the point that I don't feel that anything would get done in this house unless I point it out to people and make them do it. And I don't want to do that anymore."
I told the girls that I had told them no less than four times yesterday to pick up their coats and put them in the coat box. We talked about the fact that we have a chore chart, and they had agreed that the chores I had asked them to do were reasonable (one daily chore and three weekly chores each), but that they were going undone. I asked them whether we should start applying consequences for undone chores, and if so, what they should be. Rob objected that maybe we weren't at that point yet, and instead we should give them a second chance. I thought privately that as one of the worst offenders in the family of failing to pick up after himself, Rob would naturally want a million second chances, but I agreed to let it go for now and see if people would more willingly do their chores, and we would re-visit the issues in two weeks. At that point, if things have not changes, I will insist on setting up a consequences system.
It was a good conversation, and a hard conversation. Both girls cried a lot.
This article that
sdn pointed to, about the unfair division of work at home, based on gender lines, seems particularly timely.
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The contrast is interesting, isn't it? I think your hunch is probably correct: people do come down harder on someone that they perceive as being a stranger. At my own journal, people know me well enough to understand that hey, I have thought about these things and do actually possess some insight into my own situation; I'm not posting because I need to be told what to do.
[Frankly, over at
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