Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Work Persona v. Home Persona

Here is something else I don't understand about myself.

At work, I get frustrated when I need to delegate a new task. I know it's necessary, both for me to manage my workload and to continue to teach my team, but depending on the task and the person, I almost always reach the "it would just be easier to do it myself" stage. I keep going, because in the long run, I know it's not easier to do it myself, but I have to fight the urge.

However, at home, I become a nag. We have our home responsibilities fairly evenly split out. In the evenings when we are all home I cook. (I actually plan all the meals for the week on Sundays well as do the marketing.) So, anyway, I cook - T cleans up. I check backpacks for homework, T bathes the kids. I assign (and supervise) the kids chores, T takes out the trash. All in all, a fairly even workload, although T does do more around the house than I do. Of course, that's mostly because he's been working part-time, while I've been working full-time, and paying all the bills. But, I digress...

So this morning, when I am putting my lunch together for work, I notice one of the ingredients I used in last night's dinner is still on the counter. OK, fine - except for the part where it says "refrigerate after opening". I go to throw the bottle away and find that the trash can is full. (Tuesday is trash night). These are not one-time occurrences. This is a regular thing. T's argument is that he has CRS. (Can't Remember S**T) - I say that's just a convenient excuse (especially since he never forgets when his next golf game is, or what time the next (insert any sport you'd like here) game is on.

But here's the question - why don't I just do this stuff myself? Which is worse being a nag or being a control freak? Is there a happy medium? I don't like nagging, and he can't like being treated like a third child - but what comes first? Am I the chicken doing the reminding without which the egg doesn't do diddly-squat? Or am I the egg that has learned her lesson - that if I don't nag - the stuff doesn't get done?

1 comment:

alienbody said...

The trick is to get your kids involved. So what you do is assign the chore to your son (since he's the oldest), then tell T that he needs to help your son with the task until he becomes big enough to do it himself. That includes garbage take out and rolling the large cart to where it needs to be. It will be awhile until he's able to do it all alone. However, when you remind S, then he will run off and tell daddy and be a little pest until daddy helps. All kids are different, but if there is some reward system for taking out the garbage, then your son might just force daddy to remember!