"You could take care of it just to be nice!"

Son 2 took me to task rather sharply a couple of nights ago, but to explain why I have to back up a bit.

Last week, ... no more like two weeks ago by now ... Son 2 decided to implement a new household rule that dishes have to be done promptly (or at least loaded into the dishwasher promptly) – by the person who used them! -- rather than being allowed to pile up in the sink. One side of me cocked an eyebrow at the idea that he had taken it upon himself to legislate for the household. But in fact it is a good rule, so I have been perfectly happy to support it. It's a big improvement over the haphazard way we have handled dishes up till now (which typically meant that I did them if I fixed dinner, and Wife let them collect in the sink if she did).

So anyway, Sunday night Wife was going to make a lasagne but couldn’t find the large casserole dish. I said I had seen it some days ago in the bottom of the refrigerator with a bit of jello in it, left over from last week some time when she and Son 2 had made jello. Son 2 fetched the dish from the fridge and set about cleaning it; and he soon discovered that jello left uncovered in a refrigerator for a week hardens to an industrial toughness. So he had quite a bit of scrubbing to do. As he was scrubbing, he said (a little testily, but he was obviously trying to be patient), “Dad, I realize we can’t change the past. But the next time you see something like this abandoned in the fridge, could you get it out and run some water in it to soak so that it will be easier to clean?” I answered simply that the whole thing had been somebody else’s project, so I had done my best not to interfere. And he replied a little more sharply, “Well even if you didn’t make the jello or eat it, if you are the one who sees it first then you could take care of it just to be nice!”

I didn’t answer him then, but afterwards called him back into another room. There I explained, “When you say something like that I am of two minds. On the one hand I am glad, because what you are saying is right -- it is the way families ought to behave -- and I am glad you have learned that because it means you will be a good father when you have your own family. But on the other hand I am sad, because there is a bigger context to this picture that explains why I make choices like this.” I went on to say in very general terms that for decades I had done exactly the kind of thing he was talking about – cleaning up other people’s messes after them – because it is indeed the right thing to do in a family. But over many years I had discovered that if you do that for people consistently, they don’t learn to clean up after themselves. I then added that this larger context really wasn’t his problem so he shouldn’t have to think or even know about it, but that it did affect how I made those kinds of decisions. None of this is verbatim, of course. And I was scrupulously careful never to mention Wife individually, although it is absolutely clear to me that Son 2 understood who I meant. (Who else have I known for decades, that could still be affecting what I do in our house?)

In retrospect maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, because maybe that falls under the umbrella of saying bad things about the other parent, and all the divorce literature that I read urges "Don't bad-mouth your soon-to-be-ex." But at the time it seemed like the alternative was to let him think I was being a jerk because I didn’t know any better, and I wasn’t sure that was a good choice either.