A bit more about Fair Play

Regular readers know that when I say “a bit more” or “a few words” or similar, brace yourself or possibly skip reading.

I’m reading through the cards section of Fair Play, and the CPE structure kind of drives me bananas. It is concealing too much. The goal, of course, is to be able to turn the mental / planning / reminder load off of the person who is running the household / handling most of the kid duties. That’s a great goal, and there is a lot about the CPE structure to love about that. However, there are really serious problems, too. Like, there’s a card for Special Needs / Mental Health (kids) that is separate from Teacher Communication. First off, I don’t understand how that could work. A lot of times, the author explicitly says that people holding one card will have to work closely with the person holding a related card (kids parties and kid transportation, for example), or she’ll say that if you have this then you have to deal with the transportation component of it as well. That’s confusing. But there is NO SUCH COMMENT on Special Needs / Mental Health and Teacher Communication. Further, there’s NO COMMENT about redealing Special Needs / Mental Health. And there’s NO CONNECTION made to the Discipline card. I don’t understand how these are separable tasks AND if you have multiple parent-figures / caregivers, you have to involve as many as you possibly can in IEP processes or the IEP won’t work. Literally. I put a ton of pressure on R. to go to these meetings even tho he didn’t see any purpose in his presence, because there wasn’t a lot for him to say. But it was incredibly important to everyone for him to be there to hear what the team had to say, and when there was something for him to say, it was important for him to be there, notice and say it.

This is a great book, and a needed book, and the author, as a mediator, is very, very good at creating structured opportunities to help families get to a better working relationship. But boy oh boy the specifics of the cards are utter bullshit.

There’s other minor stuff, too, like, dishes. My sister has carved up the dishwasher project to have one piece for each kid, altho she is the manager of the structure. We worked pretty hard to move kids along the process of understanding how to load the dishwasher, because it’s a critical life skill. I’m still working on making sure the last person to bed starts the dishwasher, but honestly, we’re nearing a point where that will be a programmable part of a smart dishwasher (if closed and if it is after a certain time of night then start running, type of thing). Having this be a card between the parents and not involving the kids in the process seems weird. And there’s a lot of stuff like this.

ETA:

The card “Informal Education” is a whole bunch of stuff that PE and related should be teaching, and the extent of riding a bike is learning to balance — nothing about adhering to traffic rules, local rules about sharing sidewalks and bike paths with pedestrians. But that’s not what I’m here to complain about! I’m here to complain about “(Hint: If your kid is the only one in class still wearing Velcro sneakers, you might want to remedy that by teaching him to tie his shoes.)”

Nothing referring back to the Special Needs card, either. Entirely un-inspected assumptions.

ETAYA:

In the section about why not to break up a task / ask for spousal help in Execution, there’s a story about parent heading out the door to pick up could-choke-on-things-offspring from mom’s who asks other parent to pick up the “Marvel Legos”. Other parent hears “marbles” can’t find any leaves legos on floor. This is given as a reason not to break up a task.

!!!!!

How is there a parent in this scenario — this is the _younger_ of _two children_ — who doesn’t realize that when the kid-who-could-choke-on-things returns home, there must be nothing (not marbles, not marvel legos) on the floor!

Same section, story about hears the drycleaning please drop it off. Person tries to drop it on a day when the drycleaner is not open. Person _would have made this mistake themselves_ if they had been responsible for conception and planning (ask me how I know. Just ask me. I’m not even talking about R. here. I know too many people who’v made this mistake). And yet somehow, it’s “solvable” by having one person do CP and E. No it’s not! It’s “solvable” by someone habitually doing the drycleaning dropoff OR by having the drycleaning dropoff time put on google calendar where it fucking well belongs.

There is so much stuff in this book that basically amounts to, CPE will fix this! And if you need help with E, ask your village, not your spouse! Some of these are things that would be way better fixed by teaching people to use gentler language with each other, and how to be consistently emotionally validating (even in a mechanical manner). Some of these things are a matter of one person in the partnership hasn’t been doing a lot of stuff and basically needs to learn how. CPE is _a_ solution, and it’s not clear it’s even a _great_ solution.

Then there’s crazy shit about resolving disagreements in the Minimum Standard of Care. In the event you can’t agree on an MSC, the players are supposed to ask “Would a reasonable person (in this case, your partner, spouse, babysitting, caregivers, parents and in-laws) under similar circumstances CPE this card in this way.” _Really_?!?! That guy a couple paragraphs up left legos on the floor with an under 3 year old coming home. _He is a dangerously incompetent visitor in his own house._ _He would not know to ask this question much less what the answer is._ Fine, he’ll learn by doing, and fine, maybe his spouse isn’t the right person to teach him, but how does any of this help?

Reading through the Need Execution Help again, and just cannot get over the request help from someone in your village other than your partner by providing full context and an explicit request. So, like, if you have a medical emergency and have to go to the hospital, and you haven’t done your Daily Grind tasks, you have to arrange outside help from someone other than the parent of your children, and fully explain how to do everything, rather than ask the other adult in the house to deal with it while you drive yourself to urgent care / the hospital?

Really?

“My husband taking full CPE ownership of the ‘auto’ card was worth ten cards to me because …” Oh boy. This husband had dropped the ball on car care?!? The Superwoman vibe in this book is _wild_.

“When my husband took over “extracurricular (sports)” for Zach and Ben, I gained back eight hours a week.”

The husband had dropped the ball on _sports_ _for_ _sons_. And this book is intended to reduce men resenting women for nagging and ordering them around? The men in this book are … something else again. Car, lawn, sports for boys are well within trad male responsibility.

Halfway through Fair Play

Author is now quoting Ariely, which is 100% not reliable, and the quotes about Gottmans being used to support not giving feedback in the moment are 100% dishonest in terms of representing the Gottmans’ excellent work. If you are pulling 4 Horseman, you need to take a break. But if you are NOT, then in the moment is fine. In the moment feedback is absolutely crucial in virtually every learning environment — which this for sure is! — and delaying feedback and giving it all at once at a point in time where it can’t change anything sounds horrifying. It turns life into a graded exercise. Gah.

The author is obviously trying to get people who are feeling a lot of big, negative emotions to take a break and supply informative feedback calmly later. That’s great. But then there’s this: “Delivering feedback in the moment is never helpful, not really. Sure, there can be merit to saying how you feel when you feel it.”

Actually, that’s so much crap. Feedback in the moment can be very helpful. If you walk in the door carrying an under 3 year old and there’s an adult present who can pick up legos, saying, “Please get all the legos and other chokables off the floor so the under 3 year old can safely play in here” is immediately helpful and likely to be appreciated. The lesson may even stick long term, because they can connect Baby Present = Get Chokables Put Away Immediately. Also, do that with the first kid. Don’t have a second kid with someone who is unable to absorb that rule.

There are other strategies: segregated rooms for chokables, segregated rooms for no chokables, etc. But honestly, it is very useful to be able to focus in the moment on what you need done right now, clearly articulate it and repeat it until people comply.

Also, I still don’t understand why you can’t say, hey, there’s a grocery list, please add anything you want to it and then go get the groceries and remember it’s Sunday they close at X time, or, in the example given, please drop off the dry cleaning and they are not open on Monday. This whole, have to get someone outside the house to do it is awesome if your long term goal is separation and divorce, because all the basics will be covered once the other person is out of the house.

“Tip! Fridays over Sundays. Many couples report that a check-in on Friday is preferable to a Sunday because by the end of the weekend, most couples are toast.”

W.T.F.

We’re fried on Friday, and mostly recovered by Sunday. The book is targeted at two-career couples with young children. How is it that your weekends are more exhausting than your work week?

ETA:

“Three days after Alan took on the “transportation (kids)” card, he confessed to his wife: I’m so sorry you’ve been stuck in this never-ending carpool line every day. I had no idea how much time this one job requires.”

So many questions.

First, yay, if this game gets people to quit being fucking tourists in their own lives, then That Is Everything. Also, really? He ignored her comments on the topic completely? She failed to mention any of it? Really?

ETA:

There’s all these Fair Play “fixes” for things going wrong that basically amount to, Failure to Perform As Agreed. There are lots, but the trigger was dad not feeding the kids lunch, with a pre-agreement “by noon” and “no later than 1” and this was detected by not-present parent after 2:30. Reminding him of his commitment is NOT going to fix this problem.

Ask me how I know.

(And this isn’t even about R., altho he does it too. I have a List of perpetrators. It is Long.)

This part I do agree with:

“The more you invest in unpacking the details of your domestic workload, setting clearly defined expectations and mutually agreed-upon standards, the more you will be rewarded”. That’s true. That’s super super super true. Mostly, because if you get rid of as much as possible by reducing commitments and expectations, and then automate as much as possible, and create systems that clearly document commitments, there’s less to do and easier for anyone to do it. But that’s not what’s going on in this book. At all.

I still feel like a card based assignment system could work; I just really loathe the details of this one.

ETAStill More: I don’t understand how playing piano again is Unicorn Space. Also, if Pilates and spin class are NOT Unicorn Space, what about fencing or martial arts? But if fencing or martial arts could be Unicorn Space, what exactly is it that stops Pilates or spin class from being Unicorn Space? It’s really clear that part of Unicorn Space is having something that makes you Interesting . But reading a good book is NOT Unicorn Space. Is running a book group Unicorn Space? It is giving back and it definitely can make one interesting (bizarrely!). So reading books you don’t necessarily like is Unicorn Space but reading books you love the hell out of isn’t? If you are reading a good book as part of a project to better understand use of repetition in popular literature as part of maintaining and establishing a brand, in service of a hypothetical monograph on the topic (monographs, general interest non fiction work, series of blog posts or articles), is THAT Unicorn Space?

“Pick one category that appeals to you today and drill down to identify a trade, skill, sport, art, practice, or class that you want to commit to exploring, developing, or completing over the next six months.” But why can’t it be spin class or Pilates? I mean, I’ve never done either so maybe there’s something about these activities that make them NOT legitimate examples of a class sport or practice that one could commit to exploring or developing?

But it really seems like if learning to read music, or learning ASL or learning a modern or ancient language could count, then why NOT Pilates or spin class? Is it just, no, you can’t go exercise more in the way you usually do, it would have been helpful to say _that_. Then it can’t be, Go For Longer Walks to someone who walks. But could it be hiking? Do you have to have a goal of becoming a backcountry guide in order to legitimate walking as Unicorn Space?

Wait, cycling CAN be a “Heart (pumping)” Unicorn Space activity. But not spin class?

In Which We Return Home

Breakfast at the hotel, and then lunch at Hen and Hog again. Very tasty. I tipped well enough that the server we had yesterday pulled my sister out of the line and seated her immediately. Go us. I need to remember to bring more smaller bills (fives, probably) for handing to the valet when doing in-and-out at the hotel. I didn’t have enough. I mean, I had enough to get the level of service I like, but I felt mildly guilty about not having that amount every time.

We returned the rental car, and then hung out in a concourse because the gate area was too warm. A. and I split chicken fingers from Steak and Shake. That was fine. I also got a chocolate muffin from Plane Box for A.

Flight home, thank goddess, was uneventful and on time. It was mid 40s, so no ice or anything going home. No traffic, because we were driving home after 10 pm on NYE so everyone was where they intended to be for the next hour or so.

We opened packages and mail, but I did not start laundry. I mostly unpacked altho there will be more to do tomorrow.

This is the first trip I’ve been on, maybe ever, where I didn’t come home debugging something that went horribly wrong on the trip. Other than that first flight — and I don’t really know what I could have done differently there — it was smooth and pleasant the entire time, which is completely astonishing to me. I am grateful. Obviously, there are things I will modify (I really need to take the warm PJ / loungewear packing problem much more seriously, because I save space by not bringing them and then I buy them and have to solve the space problem on the way home), but they are minor and it’s less a matter of fixing something and more a minor refinement of packing. Not a single major interpersonal conflict. Soooo delightful.

Also! I remembered to ask my nieces and sister if they want to do RavenCon this year and it’s a go!