A card from Fair Play by Eve Rodsky
Meals (Weekday Dinner)
If you have never CPE’d dinnertime in a family with kids (particularly young ones), then no words can really do justice to this nightly circus. The ringleader plans a weekly menu, consults the “groceries” cardholder to have the ingredients at home, then cooks, ensures that the food actually gets eaten, and ideally uses this forced family time to have “quality” conversations about everyone’s day. Men: Kudos to you if cooking is one of your domestic contributions, but that’s just one word on this doozy of a card. Hero status isn’t awarded for just pulling out a frying pan.
Holding this card means owning all three
Conception
Your family needs to eat dinner
Planning
- Menu planning/recipe selection
- Making lists of items needed (give to “Groceries” cardholder with appropriate amount of time or purchase yourself)
Execution
- Cooking/preparing
- Serving
- Putting dishes in sink for “Dishes” cardholder
Suggested Minimum Standard of Care
Is your family fed a reasonably nutritious meal during the appropriate time window for each meal.
A starting point. You and your partner agree the real standard together, and the holder meets it without reminders.
Holding it well
- It’s a Daily Grind: relentless and time-bound. Make sure each of you holds a fair share of these, ideally one from each suit.
- The holder owns all of it: noticing, planning and doing. No “just tell me what to do.”
- Agree the Minimum Standard of Care together, then let the holder meet it their way.
- Not working? Bring it to the weekly check-in and re-deal it. Don’t take it back mid-week.
Put this card on your table
Deal it, agree its standard, and see who holds what. Free.