The Unspoken Rule

We’ve discovered an unspoken rule between new parents. It doesn’t have a name; nobody warns you about it (It’s unspoken—duh!). It’s akin to bargaining.

It usually manifests like this:

Spouse 1: “Sweetheart, you busy?!”
Spouse 2: “What do you need, honey bunny?”
Spouse 1: “Can you watch the baby for a few minutes? I need to take care of the dog.”
Spouse 2: “Are you sure? I can take care of him.”
Spouse 1: “No, no. Really, I don’t mind picking out the fleas lodged in his matted fur. I’ll be in the basement with a comb.”

Or there’s this scenario:

Spouse 1: “Okay, we’ve got the family coming over tomorrow. We need to clean the bathrooms, make cookies, file the bills and mow the lawn.”
Spouse 2: “Plus I noticed that we should probably rinse off the porch, clean out the fridge, steam clean the carpets, and re-grout the tile next to the kitchen sink. If you watch the baby, I’ll take care of everything.”

It’s not that we don’t love our child or enjoy spending time with her. However, if one parent happens to be off in another room in the house, sans baby, that parent had better be doing something meaningful and productive to warrant such precious alone time. Relaxation or adult fun time is not allowed unless the baby is in both parents’ presence or an agreement was previously established.

The good news is that all this makes you more productive. Given the time suckage that comes with a child, the more you can do in a short time the better. Of course, once you’ve suckered the other parent, you can always stall…

What would you do to get some alone time:
	Deworm orphans in developing countries
	Work on an equation that succinctly situates the place of the human mind in physical time and space
	Call tech support (any product)
	Nothing at all – hand over the kid
Free polls from Pollhost.com