Boy Eyes

"Mooom, where's the..." used to be a constant refrain in our house, and I know I am not alone.

At first, I just told them where it was. It seemed like a quick and logical solution to the minor problem at hand: someone I loved didn't know where something was, and I did. Of course I told them. What kind of manipulating liar would do otherwise?

Our household fell into gender roles, despite my assertion that things would be "fifty-fifty" in our marriage.

I wasn't the first in my social group to get married. I'd seen the phenomenon play out for them. Maybe I was arrogant in thinking "It won't be like that for me".

What was thinking? That others were just lazy, unskilled or lacking in their relationships? That, surely, it can't be that hard?

Here I was, a self-identified feminist, married to a man who would probably describe himself the same way. l'd got decades of women's lib at my back. Yet I was still doing almost all the laundry, grocery shopping and cooking.

If someone in the house needed to know the location of a stray sock, or whether we had any boil-in-the-bag jasmine rice, I was the obvious person to ask.

I mean, yes, they could have just looked, sure. Especially when the item was in the same place it had lived for years. But even when they did, it didn't seem to help.

"Babe, where is the sticky tape?"

"Where it always is."

.......

"Umm... where's that?"

"Kitchen. Third drawer down."

That should be the end of it, right?

Sadly, no. The exchange continues.

"Babe!" he calls, "It's not there!"

"It should be!" I call back, determined to drink this cup of coffee at least, while it was still pleasantly hot, and with as few interruptions as possible. "I used it this morning and put it back!"


I take another sip, but I'm not really relaxing with my coffee anymore. I'm waiting to have to stand up, walk through to the kitchen, and locate the sticky tape.

Sometimes, someone has put something in front of it, or rarely, it has been knocked aside or fallen down the back.

Most often, it would be precisely where I said it would be, staring us both in the face.

He doesn't even have the good grace to look sheepish! He says, "Oh. Thanks," and wanders off with the tape.

Later, I will find it lying around, and say, "Have you finished with this?"

"Yeah," he says.

I put it away, so that, next time someone needs it, it will be easy to find. That's the theory, anyway. The reality is, he will ask that same question, and the whole scene will play out again.

Or, just as likely, one of the children will ask it. In the unlikely event they ask him, he will reply, "Ask your mother."

I know it sounds like a small thing. But it's all the time and holy hell is it ever annoying.

One day, I gave myself a reality check. What had seemed obvious, honest and logical, had in fact trained the whole not of them to treat me as a kind of livestream inventory of where every last item belonging to everyone in the house was. All the time.

This is in addition to the rolling grocery checklist: what we've got, where it is, how much is left, whether it's short-dated, when it needs to be used by, what I can make with it, what else I therefore need to buy, whether anyone dislikes it, and what sides or alternatives I can ensure are available.

Some days, it felt like my head might explode with this grindingly dull data. Bits and pieces of me were vanishing to accommodate it. I decided I'd had enough.

"Mom, where's the..."

My new response was, 'I don't know."

I anticipated short term chaos and frayed tempers while my family adjusted to this new dynamic. An extinction burst, if you like. I couldn't have been more wrong! It was never ending.

We were late for appointments. The children missed homework deadlines. Guilt pecked at me. I was being petty. Often, I knew where the missing item was! So much drama could be avoided.

I reminded myself what it was like, Before, and tried to stay the course.

Of course it was impossible, so I reached a compromise: I would help the children, but my husband, being a grown man, could fend for himself.

"Mom, where's the..." would now be met, time depending, with "Where did you last have it?" or, "Do you know where it usually is?" If I had to spoonfeed them the answer, I'd remind them that they needed to be responsible for their own stuff.

When my eldest turned 13, I implemented a new rule. I'll tell you where it is, or I'll find it for you, but you have to pay me. The "I can't find it" box was soon overflowing.

I warned the younger two that they would be finding their own pocket money docked if this continued.

Last year, the youngest turned 13, and a new cash box appeared on the kitchen shelf. The "It's Not There!" box.

Both receive a steady stream of income. I still feel frustrated at my hapless family, but at least I'm being compensated for it.

It was at this point I started moving things when my husband left them lying around. It meant more money for me, but it also helped a lot with my patience. I was hard pressed to be cross with him when I knew full well that the thing he was looking for definitely wasn't where he'd left it.

Of course he got suspicious, and once accused me of such shenanigans.

"Really!" I said, "We've been married nearly twenty years! I can't believe you'd think such a thing."

There's quite a bit of money in those jars now. I might treat myself.