A word of wisdom for those younger women...

Or may be this post should be titled - "Dear men - tip one on how not to drive us crazy when it comes to housework."

We all know the term "boy look" don't we? You know when a male of any age or stage asks you "where is..." and you say "look there..." and they say "I can't find it" and you go and there it is - if not exactly where you said it was within a 10 cm radius. The kind of thing that makes most of us want to scream with frustration particularly if there is any suggestion that their inability to find it is because (a) you put it away, (b) you didn't put it away or (c) they don't think that is the best place to put it.

And of course that lack of competence seems to inevitably play out into other aspects of household management. Yesterday it struck me that maybe part of the core of "the boy look" and "the boy clean" is a fundamental lack of appreciation of household management as a planned sequence of tasks. So for instance my "helpful" male cleans up around me (and my daughter) when we are in the middle of cooking - this invariably leads to him putting things away before we have finished using them and almost as invariably creates a burning desire to attack him with the sharp knife which he has just helpfully put in the dishwasher 30 seconds before we reached for it.

So anyway - we have painters coming to our house prior to our new carpet being laid. In order for both these tasks to be completed some bookcases need to be moved. The carpet layer will move them as they go on the condition they are empty of books. So yesterday I suggested to my dearly beloved that we pack the books into some old packing boxes for the duration based on the information already mentioned. Oh yes he thought that was a good idea...

So what happened? In the afternoon I was clearing out youngest child's bedroom which involved implementing the logical process of checking that DVDs and games were in the right covers before they were packed away, that library books were sorted out so they could be returned rather than put in the boxes for a month collecting overdue fines, that clean clothes and dirty clothes, summer and winter clothes all had their appropriate home. DB came in to help and what does he start to do? Repeat the task already 90% complete with the DVD's which included asking me where the cover was for the one that I hadn't already found, put books in the bookcase and then put the library books in the bookcase. Hello - which part of "we're packing the books up so we can move empty bookcases did we miss here?"

Anyway to my tip - Boys please learn to walk in to a significant cleaning task and ask "what's the plan?" and then "which bit do you want me to do?" OK I acknowledge that in a perfect world you should have an itemised household management list in your head as well and I shouldn't have to ask or direct but sometimes you have to go with the flow. I also think it's a two way thing and in this respect we can be just as guilty walking into a task they have started and applying our approach without checking first. The main point is - the whole thing will go a whole lot better and a whole lot smoother if one person has a plan and the other person cooperates>

Well we did baking so now onto some craft

OK so there will be the kitchen section - with all the useful stuff about making Christmas cakes by now so they have time to mature by Christmas (favorite family Christmas cake recipes anyone?)

My daughters have been unimpressed with early Christmas decorations in the mall but I must admit that at least it gets me thinking about the plan for the season. My favorite site coming up to Christmas has got to be Organized Christmas - unfortunately with each passing year it gets more ads but there are some wonderful ideas there underneath the Americanisms. I particularly like a planning task for around this time of the year where you think about what went well and not so well the year before and think of areas you want to focus on.

However every year I get caught in the trap of the Christmas craft magazines - the Christmas quilting and cross stitch magazines have an irresistible lure that sucks me in every time. Not only that but they are the ones I find hardest to throw away. It was no different this year - I even commented to the newsagent that I had to overcome the addiction as I never actually got to do the projects (and in this case I'm not convinced my newly balanced lifestyle will make much difference) However his response to my joking comment about contributing to his profits was a really insightful question in the context. He asked me if I enjoyed reading them and when I said I did, he suggested that maybe they had served there purpose well for that alone. So this year I am going to just enjoy the browsing and not create a mental list of all the things I am going to make.

Choosing how to use effort wisely is a much under recognised skill.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

I was just thinking today that the third term for any political party is the killer ... every time we have had a three term cycle (in my memory and thats about 4 occasions) the last three years is the killer. The party with the majority just cant get it right. I think we have a short attention span - we get bored, the politicans get bored and then being back in opposition sharpens them up.

I dont know if there is a better way and still be democratic - I wonder what would happen if we made grand coalitions a requirement for the third term e.g. National or Labour would hold the majority and get to have the prime minister but the coalition partner would have to be the next highest polling party. Then the next election cycle the leadership would probably still swing but the whole process would be more informed - plus we'd probably get a few more decent ministers in the meantime.

I mean, honestly, in the 21st century - do we really need black/white (or red/blue) partisan politics to this degree? And in a country the size of ours can we really afford to have decent talent languishing on opposition benchs for years at a time. I grew up in a family which was very clear about the difference between party politics and choosing someone who would represent the electorate fairly. One of the great things about MMP is being able to have that choice. But I think we need to take MMP a step further - many of us are still voting with a two party viewpoint (even voting Act or Green for instance is couched in terms of influencing a major party)

One of my delights this election was watching two nine year olds who each had a strong loyalty to opposite sides in the major party stakes get totally engrossed in tracking the Bill and Ben party vote particularly in the electorate seats of candidates they knew. I'm really grateful for a system that allows that kind of idiosyncrasy to happen. Bill and Ben actually achieved their party goal in our house.

In my total idealism I just wish that in some way we could have elections where the outcome is about balancing the values and goals of all New Zealander's into a collaboration that moves our country forward, rather than having winners and losers. We were the first country to give women the vote - maybe we could be the first country that could have a genuine negotiated representative democracy.