Halfway through Fair Play
Dec. 31st, 2024 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutAuthor 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?
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?