ESP - You Thought You Knew
June 12, 2008 – 8:30 amESP has been traditionally know in my circles as Extra-Sensory Perception. I loved studying about this in graduate school as part on my parapsychology studies. But recently, ESP has taken on a different meaning, Equally Shared Parenting.
“Teammates through life,” the husband in the NY Times video says, yet the husband and wife split up the laundry duties whites (hers) and darks (his) because apparently no one wants to do it (so if they have two garbage cans do they each clean one can every three months???). My perception is that ESP tries to reframe a social contract of love and respect issues in the realm of a business contract dividing up responsibilities (to borrow from Dan Ariely’s terminology in Predictably Irrational).
I believe that each person whether working or not has an essential role in the family. Teaching at times, learning at time, following at times, and leading at times, but in each role, with love and respect. When we talk about people and relationships, equal is a little more complex than getting change for a dollar and splitting it 50/50 (because inevitably one person will want a 50 cent piece and the other will want 50 pennies - and the change maker gave you 4 quarters). Of course any married couple regardless of culture and era should want health, recreation, and fulfillment for their partner. It is implicit in the couples marriage vows or relational covenant.
As I watched the New York Times video on ESP, I couldn’t help but think that this idea is wrong kind of ESP a healthy relationship requires, focusing on the individual self-fulfillment. Instead, my marriage has required me to perceive, in almost an extra-sensory way, the things that create spousal-fulfillment through respect, appreciation, and selfless love. I am not trying to say something crazy like we should be willing to live together in love willing to comfort your partner, or honor them; whether they are in sickness and in health; especially forsaking everything for them as long as you both shall live… or then again, maybe that is exactly what I am saying.
ESP, in an attempt to create individual and family health, seems to focus on marriage as something that primarily is focussed on equally shared responsibilities and fairness (business commitments), instead of respect and love (social commitments). ESP is a hopeful construct that will in actuality causes a regression pointing back to a time when marriage was more a business contract between families than a love contract that require self-sacrificing love.
What do you think?
