Point of friction

Life is a constant exercise in decision making, finding compromises and choosing between options that either both equally likable or the opposite. But when you live in a family, the opportunities for conflict multiply, because the interest of one are likely to be contrary to the interest of the other, and having four people living under the same roof call for constant diplomacy.

One of the recurrent points of contention in the last months is the use of the office. Technically, it is Karen's office, because she is the one working (officially) from home. The kids go to school and then have their own desks upstairs to take care of their homework; I have had a single office of my own for almost two years, since I joined my current project, and I have set it up very nicely, so most of the time I (used to) work there and, if ever I have to do anything in the evening, just my laptop and any corner of the house would do. Karen, on the contrary, works almost exclusively from home, so she has set up a very functional office for herself, with nice cabinets, all her stationery, one desk and one separate computer workstation. By circumstances, the office also accommodates the "family computer", as well as the router for the internet access, the backup stations and so forth.

Photo: pikrepo

The problem arises mainly from the fact that Karen is an evening person: unless she has an appointment in the morning, she prefers to sleep in and then work in the afternoon and the evening, sometimes even past midnight. Of course, this clashes with the time where the kids would be free to play on the computer in the afternoon. By the time they are done with their homework it is usually 18:00, smack in the middle of Karen's most productive time slot. Today, this fact drove Trevor in an subdued but actual rage fit: "Why can't she work in the morning? The computer sits untouched for hours after we leave the house and then it is in use precisely in the only time slot where we have a chance to use it. So unfair!". Karen, on the other hand, laughs at the idea that she should stop working to let them play, and understandably so.

For months, she has been regularly suggesting that we could move the family computer upstairs, so that the kids do not have to compete with her for the use of the office. However, I have repeatedly dismissed the suggestion because I did not want them to use the computer totally unchecked. We trust them, but when it comes to the amount of time that they spend on the computer it can easily get out of their hands if we do not do something, so I have prefer keeping the computer downstairs to be able to check on them every now and then. However, in the summer Jason got a laptop for school and we made sure that it was powerful enough to work well with the games he usually plays. This has had the positive side effect that he now plays in his room and does not fight for access to the family computer. Of course, I now have to check with him upstairs, which is a bit more work, but has smoothed out a lot of the conflict. The obvious conclusion now is that setting up a working laptop for Trevor might finally crack the problem. I am not ready to let this computer stay upstairs unchecked for days on end, but the advantage of a laptop is that we could find a compromise and let it spend the night in the office (just to avoid the temptation of spending school day evenings on it). Now, all that is left is to find a suitable occasion, because Jason got his for his 16th birthday and it would be extremely unfair if Trevor got a similar present "just because", so he will probably have to endure the situation just another two months and celebrate Saturnalia with a shiny new laptop.

Let us just hope that the teetering equilibrium does not break until them. Have a nice evening.