Living with Adult Children

There was a brief period when all three of our adult children were living with my wife and me in Seattle. Our youngest was starting college, our middlest had just returned from a year living in Peru, and our oldest had relocated from Texas to Washington following her graduation from college.

Things are different now; our children have all left home, married, and started lives of their own.

However, when I was recently going through several folders on my computer with collections of old files, I discovered a Word document with a note that I had typed up for my children during that short boomerang season when they were living with my wife and me as adults.

Notice to Everyone in this Household:

  • You will wash your own dishes immediately after you are done with them.
  • If you have friends over, you will wash their dishes immediately after they are done with them.
  • You will carry any dishes from your room (or your car, or wherever) back to the kitchen immediately after you are done with them.
  • If the dishes in the dishwasher have not been run, you will put your own dishes in the dishwasher.

Contrary to Popular Belief:

  • It will not hurt you to periodically empty the dishwasher as a favor for the dish person.
  • It will not hurt you to periodically cook dinner.

Do you think this note this made any difference in their behavior?

Open-mouthed smile

Comments are closed