Grown Up At Last

How exhilarating to find oneself in one’s own apartment for the very first time — away from the control and direction of parents free to be whatever one wants to be in one’s very own home — to be the “boss” of oneself at last. Or so it might seem. The truth is that there’s a hidden camera in every room of the house and we’re never the boss of ourselves.

Spouses sometimes forget this. They act as if they can do whatever they want because after all no one seems to be able to stop them. This is like a thief who picks items off the shelf in a store and slips them into his pocket; no one interferes so he feels free to continue. He bypasses the cashier walking straight toward the exit. See? He got away with it! Only until the front door of course.

At this exit to the outer world a loud beeping noise announces that unpaid items are on his person. Confronted by officers the thief explains that he just “forgot” to pay. His story is belied by the video-recording of him carefully looking to the left and the right as he surreptitiously slips the items into an inner pocket.

Chaim takes very good care of himself. He takes a long nap in the middle of the day and then in the evening — when the kids need help with homework and bath time and all the rest — he usually tells me that he can’t take the noise; he needs a break. And then he’ll just leave the house leaving me to do everything all by myself. Does he think I’m different from him? I can’t take the noise either. I’ve worked all day done the grocery shopping made dinner and now while I’m falling flat on my face I have to do the evening routine all by myself! What makes him think that he can just walk out of here and leave it all to me?

Well clearly he can. In fact he does it routinely. No one is stopping him just like no one stopped our thief above. Chaim has shed his responsibility because it didn’t suit him. Of course he’d be tired and stressed if he stayed home and did his share but so what? His wife is tired and stressed doing both her share and his. Moreover Chaim knows that his wife will fulfill her responsibility that she won’t abandon the children so that she can escape the noise and that she will in fact do everything that is required for her home and family. How nice for Chaim. How awful for his wife.

Abandoning Responsibility

There are lots of ways to abandon responsibility. Someone may refuse to work if the work is not to his or her liking despite being responsible for paying the bills. Someone may routinely “forget” to leave-in-time-to-arrive-on-time for carpool despite being responsible for picking up the children. Someone may decide that a good-enough marriage isn’t good enough for him or her and break up the family in search of true love — despite being responsible for providing a stable home for the children that he or she brought into the world. These are only a few of the endless ways that a person can choose to ignore responsibility.

A person who neglects responsibility may feel that he or she “got away with it.” But there is always a price to pay for this behavior. A very unhappy marriage is the typical cost of routinely “getting out of” the unpleasant tasks and responsibilities of family life. The parent who neglects the responsibility of providing a loving secure and well-functioning home for his child often pays for his or her neglect in the form of harm to the child’s long term well-being and/or the poor quality of the parent-child relationship.

Choosing irresponsibility is very much a matter of choosing long term pain for short term gain. Sometimes a person doesn’t realize that his or her behavior is in fact a form of irresponsibility. “I just needed a nap!” someone might argue. Maybe. But if a loved one tells you that they need you to accept responsibility you’d do well to believe them.