When the kids are young, there is no democracy.
There is no deciding who's in charge, as the parents, aka the dictators, are the only ones with a) money; b) a car; and c) enough height to reach the peanut butter.
Once, however, the children graduate to adulthood and begin developing independent living skills hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles from home, it's clear the form of government within the house of origin has to change.
These new and emerging adults must be recognized as (almost) equal partners at the governing table, lest there be mass chaos, anarchy and/or nobody wants to ever come home again.
Which is why, as female head of state, I established committees, and more importantly, committee chairs, as our family of five prepared to reconvene for four days Labor Day weekend.
There was the Games Committee Chair, an all-important, all-encompassing job, and an honor, since games is how this family spends most of its time, second only to sleeping, and since great diplomacy is required to even decide what game we will play. There was the Food Committee, an essential group that needed me as chair because I'm the one who knows at any given moment who is vegan, who is vegetarian and that macaroni and cheese is not a balanced meal. (Also because whoever is chair of Food is not chair of Cleanup.) There was the Baseball Committee, because, I'm told, there's nothing better than peanuts and Cracker Jacks on a Sunday afternoon in late summer. And the Swim Committee because distribution of labor is as important as power; somebody other than me needed to keep track of towels and the lake pass.
As the weekend approached, each of us was assigned chair responsibilities, a strategy that seemed to neutralize the usual skirmish for control amid a cacophony of "I got this!" Indeed, I believe I detected laughter from within the ranks, except for one committee, the chairmanship of which was super charged.
This would be the Cleanup Committee, which I tried to bestow on the one who never puts away his cereal bowl, whose sparkling clean room when he returned from summer camp this year looked like Walmart on Black Friday within about six hours. My hope in designating this particular chair to this particular person was to foster new pride in work and new abilities in cabinet wiping. This did not work from the get-go.
"You mean I have to do the dishes all weekend," he mumbled.
"Think of it this way," I reasoned like a good stateswoman. "The person in charge of cleanup at least gets to delegate. You have to help clean up anyway. You might as well be in charge of it."
My diplomacy didn't fly, at which point I asked the associate prime minister, who I thought might be more amenable.
"You mean I have to do all the dishes all weekend," said my husband.
"No, you just have to be in charge of making sure they get done," I tried again.
"Which means I have to do all the dishes all weekend."
Like the tortured presidential election in November, nobody knows for sure how this new form of government will play out in our house.
As of this writing, the eldest, who lives several hundred miles away, was on his way home to engage in this debate.
The associate prime minister was still asking about the dishes.
There could yet be a coup by morning.
