Respect

For someone of my age, it is impossible not to think of Aretha Franklin when the topic comes around to "respect." While Aretha was addressing the respect a woman wants from a man, my thoughts are along the lines of the mutual consideration needed to successfully combine two households as we did two years ago.

For me, respect becomes an issue when absent. A lack of respect in the household where a "boomerang child" lives shows up in small but significant ways. The clothes left in the dryer for three days would seem to indicate a total disregard for anyone else needing to do laundry. Failure to empty clean dishes from the dishwasher except on the rarest of occasions seems thoughtless, if not disrespectful. And failure to place dirty dishes into the dishwasher, despite the sign on the door indicating that the dishes are "clean" or "dirty" for anyone caring enough to read it, is a slightly greater offense because it happens so frequently and is only discovered after the boomerang child has left the scene of the crime and, for that matter, the house for the day.

Granted, these are not earth-shattering transgressions, but like the slow dripping of water that erodes the stone beneath, they eventually wear away the feeling that I am being respected, not just as a parent, but also as a woman.

Aretha Franklin would never have put up with this.