Hidden rules

I was innocently taking a shower the other day when I discovered that my face cleanser had been used by someone else. This is "allowed," but I felt irritated nevertheless. Upon examination, I realized the source of this irritation: there was a minute amount of cleanser on the cap. It bothered me so much that I actually considered summoning the culprit right then and there to demand that more care be taken in future.

(Ahem. Who's anal? Me? Couldn't be me.)

This kind of, um, specificity on my part is something the girls have had to live with their whole lives, and my transition to no-rules unschooling mom doesn't mean that I haven't made a whole slew of expectations mighty clear to everyone in the house. They are our hidden rules, and we've always had them.

Back in the dim time, when the girls were very small, I was feeling self-righteous about how easy the girls had it, how few rules they were expected to follow, and "we certainly ask little enough of them." To prove my point, I proceeded to write down every rule I could think of, expecting to wind up with about a dozen.

Well, folks, the list was loooooong. I probably had 50 rules that I expected these two tiny little girls to not only know but live by each and every minute of their lives. It was an eye opener: a little exercise that helped me see better.

These days, we have no rules. In theory, all of our rules were easily tossed out in favor of the application of common sense in individual situations. But those expectations of mine... Those are still around and probably not hidden well enough. And why should they be? you might ask. After all, individually they seem so harmless—things like "I expect the scissors to be returned to the drawer after use" and "I expect dishes to be carried to the sink and preferably put into the dishwasher" and "I expect the lid of my face cleanser to be left as nice as it was when I used it."

Well, there is harm. We end up with Ronnie cast as Demanding Arbiter of What Is Good Enough, and MJ, Chloe, and Frank cast as They Who Never Quite Measure Up. In other words, there's a dictator and the dictated-to. That's not what respect and acceptance look like.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to exterminate my internal Demanding Arbiter. That happens one incident at a time, with a deep breath or a bitten tongue or an "erase, erase, erase" (our longtime Get Out of Jerkiness Free card). And for every time I squelch the impulse to complain/nudge/remind/demand/scream, there are probably a dozen times (or more) when I give into it and don't even notice.

Fortunately for me, my family knows I'm always trying.