The story about Goldilocks is inviting in its predictability. Once you catch on to the pattern of too big, too small and just right, it eases the suspense around broken chairs and porridge that burns your tongue. There is comfort in knowing that just right is in your future. 

 

 

The other day I found an old journal from when our first batch of kids were shorter than me. I reread expired lists and goals, and stepped into my own feelings from twenty years ago. The dominant theme was 50 Ways to Coerce Short People to Pitch In. I probably spent as much time brainstorming strategies with myself as I did with my own hands in dingy dishwater. This particular Goldilocks believed that the kids' contribution to family upkeep didn't measure up.

 

In a few weeks those same kids, now taller than me, are going on a retreat together. The oldest six are, at great effort, converging by plane, train and car to be in one place for four days. This amazes me. Not only that, they have divided up the shopping, meal prep and dish duty in equitable slices. I will not change one pillowcase, not butter a single slice of toast.

 

In the nineties my kids worked too little. Now I suspect they work too much. But I have a suspicion that by the end of the story it will all be just right. 

 

Photo by Andy Sullivan

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