Ok, so I know I’ve gone on a bit about asking for help… but here’s the thing: sometimes you really shouldn’t have to ask… at least, not more than once!

Nagging is a form of optimism though. It is grounded in the belief that people will eventually do what they have been politely asked to do, or things they have kindly promised to do. And that these things will be done in a timely manner. It’s a gentle reminder that the putative nagee is part of a team and that his or her temporary noncompliance is adding to the load, both mental and physical, of the person (the Nag) who will be obliged to take up the slack.

So. Much. Optimism. 

But what’s the alternative? The Nag can either zip it and accept slave status or, shock horror, be heard the first time. I’d say the former should be discounted. There’s a great deal to be said in favour of the latter. And yet, loyal reader, we know our voices are like white noise, like static, as ignorable and inaudible as jumbo jets coming into land when you live next to the airport. 

Nobody likes being nagged, this is a given. But no-one loves being a nag. That’s a fact. Given those facts, nagging is quite a bizarre phenomenon, it really shouldn’t occur. It is a communication deficit, for sure, but why is it so difficult to resolve? I think it’s because both Nag and nagee are convinced they are being reasonable. Nagging/being nagged seems to happen in the home though, a place were reason does seem to dissipate like smoke. It takes a lot of unpaid time and invisible effort to ensure a home runs smoothly. Domestic chores are boring and repetitive; doing them is like a sisyphean task: never-ending, onerous, unrewarding… but the alternative, not doing them, merely postpones the inevitable. It inevitably makes things worse, leading as it does to squalor, waste and chaos. The Nag instinctively knows and fears this, knowing also that the ensuing chaos will be theirs to deal with. They haven’t got time. Nagees are seemingly incapable of imagining the consequences of their inaction. It feels borderline sociopathic to the Nag, who will have explained several gazillion times what those consequences are. This unfortunately remains purely theoretical for the nagee, who never ever bears the brunt of these consequences. One suspects they know they never will. And that’s the crux of the problem. They say people learn from their mistakes, and that might be true (though wouldn’t it be great if people would learn from being taught thereby avoiding costly mistakes…) but nagees (slow learners when the curriculum is booooring and seemingly irrelevant) are never actually allowed to make those mistakes, so learning is glacially slow. Thing is, you can’t wait for the electricity to be cut just to prove a point. Somebody has to cook dinner, and yes, it has to be on time (and preferably healthy) so that bedtime can follow. It’s illegal to drive uninsured, the paperwork does need to be done. Bins that don’t get collected because they weren’t put out get seriously smelly. Yes, recycling matters, and yes, you have to do it right. Yes, there is a correct way to load the dishwasher. No, it’s not enough to put clothes in the washing machine because no, they don’t hang themselves out to dry, let alone make their own way back to their cupboard all neatly folded. If the kids’ uniforms are not clean and dry on Monday mornings, said kids will be in trouble. No Nag can let these things happen so she swoops in at the last minute to save the day. None of the terrible things she warned the nagee about ever happen. If Nag were brave (foolish) enough to let the consequences happen, and then utter the timeless four words (I Told You So),  she’d just be scorned for failing to perform her wifely/motherly/feminine duties. She’d also have to sort out the mess and pay the fines which wouldn’t have been incurred if she’d been doing her unpaid job properly. She hasn’t got time for that.

Call me crazy, but I really believe that a household, be it a family unit or a group of housemates  should work as a team. While there’ll often be one slob in a house share who provokes ire and indignation, the others can usually gang up on the uncouth individual. It rarely has the desired effect, as our slob is usually completely oblivious to subtle criticism about their hygiene standards. We’re British, we don’t confront the mucky one, we complain about them on WhatsApp groups that they are excluded from. Wouldn’t want to nag… But in a family unit, there’s usually one so-called neat freak (aka the Nag) who is outnumbered by slobs. The Nag has (temporarily or otherwise) left the workforce to nurture the baby slobs when they were too young to know better. If (when) the Nag does return to work, s/he quite often does so part time, finding it preferable to forgo a full time salary rather than combine full time hours with slob-control. This leads to two things: first, baby slobs grow up believing that the Nag’s purpose in life is to wipe their backsides (literally and figuratively) and second, since they chose this, they must actually like it. It is therefore reasonable to let them do those less appealing chores which slobs simply don’t have time for, at least not today. I’ve talked about career choices for mothers before (see  http://midwifemotherme.com/2024/01/11/whos-left-holding-the-baby/) so I won’t bore you, loyal reader, about what I think of choice in this context. Let’s just say I think many terrible so-called choices are made in the context of societal expectations and the real world that we live in. In real life, women are expected to look after the kids, and this ‘choice’ is made easier by the fact they are (demonstrably) paid less than their kids’ fathers. Some women are delighted to be making that choice,  and obviously that’s OK. Just like some dads are genuinely great at sharing the load, or even being the primary Nag, I mean care giver. I am very mindful of the fact that I did ‘choose’ to be primary Nag while working miniscule part time hours. The real world facts were that it made no sense to pay others to look after my 3 slobs on a midwife’s salary. But once you are perceived to have chosen this role, you are kinda expected to take it on enthusiastically and single handedly. Because what else are you going to do with

All. This. Time.

that you now have. And of course, you do now have well, a bit more time. That can’t be denied. You have zero pension and your job prospects have vanished, but you do have more time for housework, so you know, hurrah! You can either go full Tradwife (new disturbing and slightly dystopian trend on social media, look it up), or you can go full Nag! Or perhaps somewhere in the middle, training your slobs up even as you care for them, hoping that they will become team players as they get older. Let’s just say it’s a work in progress. I’m still nagging!