Unwritten Family Rules

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Seeler said:
The same type of conflicts can occur in church kitchens.
We had a volunteer who was a 'take charge' type and fanatical about following the rules of cleanliness. Other volunteers were abruptly told to wash their hands if they were seen touching their hair or when they stepped out of the kitchen for a moment and returned. I generally worked in the dining area and mixed with the clients. That meant, apparently, that I was contaminated and couldn't enter the kitchen to refill a sugar bowl or speak to a friend.
This same volunteer was very quick and energetic. She got very impatient with another volunteer who was slow and methodical.
Many of us were relieved when she found something else to occupy herself and stopped volunteering in the kitchen.
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Church kitchens can be your worst nightmare!
Sadly, it seems to be part of the human psyche that our self esteem demands that - at least in some area of our life - that we excel at something/anything.
Trouble is, we can be quite ruthless with others in defence of our particular expertise. ;)
 
ChemGal said:
It's going to get easier.
Curious to hear if he types them or what though. I've done it a few times - copy and paste and delete portions. Often have to go back and edit as a bracket gets deleted by accident. I don't do it often as it's too much work.
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Good that it's going to get easier!
 
PilgrimsProgress said:
Thanks so much for sharing this article, Carolla - it makes so much sense.
I have saved it for future reference!

And yes, thank you, I'm having a good day. ("Thank you" ????- I think I'm turning Canuck!) ;)
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LOL Pilgrims - worse things could happen than you turning into a Canuck!! You gave me a good chuckle.
 
Attention all nerds and geeks on this site:

Fix up this multiple quote thingie NOW!!!

Otherwise my extremely interesting and thought provoking thread will be taken up with crazy Canucks multi-quoting over every page!!!

(Yeah, I admit it, I think it's too complicated for my aging Antipodean brain to master. I use my brain mostly to look for keys and glasses these days)........
 
I think pilgrimsprogress asked upthread to please return to original discussion topic ... could we do that?
 
Carolla said:
I think pilgrimsprogress asked upthread to please return to original discussion topic ... could we do that?
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Good idea!

Just a reminder that the LAST post thread is always open for silliness.

Unwritten rules . . . I once knew of a church kitchen where the UCW members counted the dishes after they were used. Don't know what they would have done if a plate or a teacup was found to be missing!
 
Unwritten rules. The Rev and the worship team leader were in the kitchen after our group last night; just putting stuff away and they discovered some coffee cups in the 'wrong' location. Much guilty scrambling to restore things to correctness.
 
paradox3 said:
Good idea!

Just a reminder that the LAST post thread is always open for silliness.

Unwritten rules . . . I once knew of a church kitchen where the UCW members counted the dishes after they were used. Don't know what they would have done if a plate or a teacup was found to be missing!
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Called out the UCW kitchen moderators? :D
 
Another bone of contention that can arise in families is their attitude towards animals - going all the way from 'animals belong in the barn, not in the house' to 'they are part of the family'. And anywhere in between.
In my family of origin both dogs and cats were allowed in the house, neither was fed at the table. Dogs belonged on the floor, not on the furniture. Cats could sit on windowsills and sleep on chairs or beds, but not on tables or kitchen counters. Fortunately Seelerman feels much the same. But I've been in houses where cats walked across the table while I was having coffee - I've been tempted to swat them down. And my grandmother, on the farm, couldn't tolerate any animal in the house.

My nephew's wife, from another country, is terrified of all dogs. She thinks of them as guard dogs ready to attack.
 
Being serious for a minute (yes, I can be) one of my aims for this thread was to point out that these "unwritten rules" cause a lot of unnecessary hurt and anger, and that in many cases if we can look at the big picture and attempt to stand back from our own upbringing, culture,etc we 1. won't get so upset and 2. will learn tolerance.
One of the reasons I love to travel is to encounter as many ways of interacting with others - it can be informative and fascinating.........
 
I agree with you PilgrimsProgress - it seems to be human nature to just assume our way is the way ... and it's a rude awakening to discover it is not - usually involving hurt feelings and lots of upset.
 
As regards the antics of church women in the tea-room -

The next time a woman glares into the bottom of a teacup, shakes her head, and puts it back into the sink when you're washing up -don't get upset with shame, feel sorry for her.
The poor dear obviously has low self esteem and thus has a necessary compulsion to prove to you and herself that she, too, has an area of competence.
(On the other hand, if you're a senior and aren't wearing your glasses, the teacup and everything else in the sink will probably remain unclean, and she's doing you a favour!)
I'm very aware of this as a senior -and for the sake of the entire congregation, - I refuse to do the washing up.
 
Dear Goddes, tell me what I was supposed to do when one of our ancient kitchen stalwarts, 85 if she's a day, brought a rotten salad to a dinner last week. What we did was consult frantically, remove the few edible items from the salad, use them to decorate some fresh spinach leaves, make sure it didn't go to her table...
 
I usually stay away from these threads - not that I don't find them interesting and informative but

I feel the guilt coming. Only my sister and I in our family. I think that most of the rules

were only known by my mother and she changed the rules to her advantage.

The worst thing we could do was embarrass the family in the neighbourhood.

I baby sat for years got an RCMP couple. I remember my mom telling her that she need only pay me $1 a night. 1 hr. or 10.

There were more 10 hours than 1 but I didn't dispute. It was a rule.

I remember that my mail was her mail. She opened and read. It was another rule.

But, I feel guilty even talking about it. Another rule "Honour your mother an father".
 
You have a great talent for 'nailing it'. My family also operated in a less than helpful way. Sure remember the 'what would the neighbours think', and the 'we don't talk about things like that'. Your last one was in my life too and made it really difficult for me to get a handle on the grief I felt when one by one my family died.
 
This is an excellent thread. Thinking back last night brought hoots of laughter. My friend and I also thought there

were different rules if you lived in the country or in an urban setting
 
crazyheart said:
I remember that my mail was her mail. She opened and read. It was another rule.

But, I feel guilty even talking about it. Another rule "Honour your mother an father".
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Possum, your Mum was just a trend setter. All of Wondercafe and an outpost in Australia read your mail these days!

Seriously, I would have been most upset if my parents read my mail.

But, I've found that with time you grow to see your parents as they (and you) are. Flawed human beings dealing with the hand that life gave them -sometimes well, sometimes not so well. And, as for honouring them, ultimately coming to see them honestly and accepting them IS honouring them.......
 
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