United front

Tamara asks about our "rule" that the strictest rule wins.

It is more of a general principle. It is particularly important when the issue is our different perceptions of what is safe. The other principle, that can conflict with the that one, is that it is not fair to expect the other parent to enforce rules that are not particularly important to him or her.

So what happens in reality is this: the "thou shalt nots" tend to get enforced equally well by both parents. On the other hand the "thou shalts" not so much. Hubby thinks that the kids should keep their rooms clean, which I don't really care about, so he stands makes them do it every Saturday. I am the one who thinks they should cook once a week, so I supervise that. If I go away for the week, Hubby does not make them cook and if he is gone I don't worry about their rooms.

On the other hand, they didn't cross the street alone until we both thought it was safe. We did not leave them home alone for even short periods until...you guessed it... we both thought it was safe.

This way of working things out has become pretty second nature to us both.

It has been a long time since either of us bothered to say these things out loud.