Thursday 25 August 2011

Rewarding Bad Behaviour


I’d be as guilty as the nest mother for rewarding bad behaviour. You’re tired, run down and the kids go on and on and on, and on occasion, you cave. I know it’s wrong. I know it flies in the face of my mantra “I am the mother. I will win” but sometimes my strength is drained and they do get to buy their lunch, eat pizza for breakfast and stay up later than they should on a school night.

But this weekend, I took rewarding bad behaviour to a whole new level – my partner.

I was so mad that he had not gotten around to so many jobs around the house that I took matters into my own hands.

Months ago I’d had some vague notion to paint the hallway dark green. It wasn’t going to work so the test patches needed to be painted out to white. He said he liked them. Gave the impression of something happening. Ahhhhh!!! He also said there’s no point because the loo in the kids’ bathroom backs onto the hall and he needs to cut a hole in the wall to adjust something in the cistern. It’ll just have to be painted again. So when did he think that would be happening? No time soon apparently. (I have mentioned he’s a plumber and builder, haven’t I?)

After a couple of choice words from me (yes, not in front of the children!) I marched down to the shed, grabbed some paint and started. Now despite working on what’s probably the world’s most famous paint brand, I’ve never really painted before. But I did! It’s a bit rough (it will need to be re-done when that cistern is attended to) but the green is gone and it does look a hell of a lot better. He even had the decency to comment that it looked good!

Now I was on a roll. I replaced the toilet seat in the kids’ bathroom that’s been hanging around all year, I fixed George’s (our oldest) all-terrain stroller that was damaged on the trip to Africa, I glued a few things that needed gluing (I think I may even have super glued the vacuum cleaner closed forever…whoops! No confessions just yet.)

So I ended up feeling quite smug and capable. But the more I think about it, the more I’m kicking myself… am I now going to have to do all the jobs myself - forever? Have I shown myself to be too capable? Am I an idiot for even opening up that Pandora’s Box? They do say righteousness is its own punishment.

What do you think?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's all over. You will now be painting for ever. You should have just yelled.

Penny said...

This is a big problem in our house! I am actually making a list tomorrow and will start tackling it myself too. That's the quickest way to get my husband moving. He also called in Spinners last week but got them to quote on something completely different that is not a priority. Raaaar!

Mother of a Man-Child said...

No wonder we get along so well - we are so alike. At least now it's done, and you can start on the next To Do list......it never ends does it? That's why your partner loves you BTW - Super Efficient Superwoman!!! He knows if he leaves it long enough you won't be able to help yourself. My man-child uses the same technique with the mess on his bedroom floor. LOL.

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