Judge John Hodgman on Making Children Save Up for Lego Hogwarts
Dana writes: Our kids really wanted the big Lego Hogwarts set. So my husband and I bought it, planning to stash it away until they saved enough money to pay for it. It’s four months later, and they haven’t saved any money. But now we’re sheltering in place. I suggested that Lego Hogwarts could be deployed in case of emergency boredom. His response? “They’d better start saving money.”
First of all, I hope you are all safe and healthy. Even your husband. I also hope by now your husband has agreed, either by reason of decency or claustrophobia, to let the Lego bricks fly. It is very difficult right now for anyone to make money, never mind children who are forced to earn their toys. Kindness, patience and productive distraction are as vital right now as paid sick leave, stimulus checks and rent forgiveness. I use my executive powers to vote for an immediate Lego bailout.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/magazine/judge-john-hodgman-on-making-children-save-up-for-lego-hogwarts.html
First of all, I hope you are all safe and healthy. Even your husband. I also hope by now your husband has agreed, either by reason of decency or claustrophobia, to let the Lego bricks fly. It is very difficult right now for anyone to make money, never mind children who are forced to earn their toys. Kindness, patience and productive distraction are as vital right now as paid sick leave, stimulus checks and rent forgiveness. I use my executive powers to vote for an immediate Lego bailout.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/magazine/judge-john-hodgman-on-making-children-save-up-for-lego-hogwarts.html
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(It's a cliche, but, like... maybe divorce him. WTF.)
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https://live.washingtonpost.com/carolyn-hax-live20200403.html#5948407
There will be so many divorces when this ends...
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Divorce? He'll be lucky if she doesn't kill him.
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"he had it coming..."
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"a real introvert so this is affecting her less "
Whoa.
"we’re all having to step up and my wife doesn’t seem to understand that includes her."
*Whoa.*
You maybe didn't mean the cruel name (O! M! G! you went for the *jugular.*) But you still clearly mean the other stuff about her not coming through for you and having less to deal with than you do and just wow.
First, and easiest to capture: Having everyone--having you--at home suddenly and constantly is brutal for introverts. All that time you used to be at work, she had the house--not to herself of course, not with with toddlers home, but she was the one working the levers. She had some control over her need for recovery time. Now she's got you there, driving her crazy just as she's driving you crazy, and going crazy with no solitude just as you're going crazy with no socializing--but on top of that you're not granting her any sympathy for her kind of discomfort. You're treating your own as the only kind that matters. That's so self-centered and unfair.
So, second step, please apply that to your "I need quiet to work now," and that "we’re all having to step up and my wife doesn’t seem to understand that includes her." Before you even approach her for something, you need to do two things: 1. See that she might now be dealing with sub-optimal conditions for doing her job, too; 2. see ways she may be adjusting to that and count those as "stepping up."
Once you do that, then you can go into a conversation about what you need without sounding dismissive and self-centered: "I realize my working at home has required a huge adjustment for you, and being an introvert makes it harder, since you don't have the alone times you used to count on." Humility. Reality. Respect.
From that foundation, you could then say: "I will do my part to give you space. What I need, in turn, is set hours for me to do my job as if I'm not even here." Or whatever it is you were asking from her before this all became so angry and personal.
I have no idea whether or when you hit the "too late" threshold, but your best chance of undoing your meanness damage is to apologize holistically: Say you are guilty of minimizing the stress on her, the adjustments she's made, the equivalence of her needs to yours.
And if this apology is genuine and if she accepts it, or if instead you just default your way to some sort of detente, please don't forget that the one thing we all might share in this whole experience is the reality that what we want is pretty much off the table. There is only what we actually have, that's our raw material--so make do with that. This isn't the first time I've used this: Remember the point in "Apollo 13" when engineers on the ground have to design a C02 filter (right?) in X hours using only what's on the spacecraft, which is dumped on the table as someone basically says, "Go"? Please focus on what's on your table--recognizing that includes two toddlers, so it's not ever going to produce an ideal "state of the house"--and get your various jobs done to the best of your ability with that. Employer, parent, spouse.
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(I was thinking only last night that surely these times are the set-up for a plethora of new allotrope of the 'country-house cut off from the rest of civilisation'/delimited group of suspects type of murder mysteries.)
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2) there is no indication of how the kids gain money
Ergo, LW, increase their allowance by just giving it to them. Or you could hand them the money as allowance and immediately take it back to pay for the toy you decided to buy for them.
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Considering how much money I got from chores + money from relatives growing up, it'd take me several years of not spending any of that money to pay for something like that.
Did the kids agree to this at any point? If they did, what was the agreement they made?
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There being more than one kid seems relevant: if Kid 1 is spending all their money on candy, Kid 2 might do the same rather than be the only one sacrificing for a toy they're going to share.
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I really wish the judge had used your formulation instead of "forced to earn their toys". He should have been hella blunt and said, "Your capitalist transactional deal with your children gives them such a damaged idea of what a gift is and does not teach them any life skills about mutual aid. After the pandemic ends, your children will not be able to function well in a post-capitalist society." But, of course, he'll never come right out and say such horrible commie anarchist stuff because the column is in the NY Times!
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