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| This humble house is the only place where we lived in a detached building as a family while we were in Australia. |
Then, at the start of August, David and our youngest son left for Japan and our middle son and I moved into live with a family as guests. We were like boarders, we provided our own lunch and breakfasts and did our own washing, they provided us with dinner. We each had our own small room. This is where I quarantined with COVID. After nearly three weeks here we separated. He went to stay with his brother in his share house for ten days, and I went to stay as a guest of the family of a close friend.
Each of these locations had their own culture. On reflection, we were “free-est” when we rented a (holiday) house for a week.
I’m guessing that most people haven’t stayed for as long as ten days or three weeks with another unrelated family (we've done it a few times, when we visited Perth for deputation). Generally, in our Western culture, we live with our own immediate family, and only visit other families for short periods. For four years I lived in a residential college (dorm) when I was at uni. Then, after I graduated, I lived in three different situations before I got married: on my own, with part-time housemate, and with a full-time housemate. But it’s been almost 25 years since I stayed with someone other than my family for a long period.
As I reflect on what we’ve experienced since June, I’ve realised how some of the things that stressed me most was living with my family with the other family cultures we experienced. I call them cultures deliberately, because they each have rules. They each have unwritten expectations and codes of behaviour that aren’t easily decoded by outsiders.
Family cultures are influenced by so many factors, here are a some:
- Personalities
- Ages of family members
- Life experience
- Location
- Environment
- Pets
- Habits
- Work
- Busyness
- Expectations
- Health
- Division of labour
- Housing: layout, resources (e.g. hot water), cleanliness, age etc.
- Tone of voice often used
- Toleration of conflict
- Parenting styles
- Values
- Goals
For example, a family with school-aged kids who have two parents working outside the home looks very different to a family with older, fairly independent teens and parents who often work from home. Factors that vary enormously include different expectations about what meal times should look like, how recreational time is spent, what expectations the family has about security, showering, feeding and exercise of pets, whether they are introverts or extroverts, and messy or slightly obsessive about cleanliness.
When you encounter someone outside their home (including on social media), you know very little about their home life and how things work there. When you are a houseguest, you have to be fairly alert to figure some of these things out. Depending on the family, some expectations are overtly stated, but other expectations aren't even conscious. This is complicated by the fact that we guests each bring our own expectations, needs, and values into the situation!
All of this is also affected by our role as a guest in the household. Hosts are being generous, so in reality they hold more power than you do in the situation. Not that I'm saying our hosts abused this power they held (although they may not have realised how much of a power imbalance existed), but it's worthwhile acknowledging that as a guest you are somewhat powerless. Most guests feel the pressure to not to cause any unnecessary inconvenience to their hosts. That can be a stressful tension to live with, especially over a long period.
So, how did I survive all these different living situations, especially when sharing a kitchen/bathroom/living area?
My strategies as a guest this time
If I could avoid the early-morning breakfast-bathroom rush, I did. Most of the time I didn’t need to be up as early as my hosts, so I just waited until they’d finished using the kitchen and bathroom. I tried to ask questions about important things like the laundry, shower use, dishwasher, and security. And I took my own coffee-making equipment (a very portable AeroPress Go)!
I don’t have food allergies or sensitivities and can eat most things, so that makes being a guest easier. But I can’t use regular soap, it dries my skin out and causes rashes, so I provided my own body soap and my own dishwashing gloves. I also used my own pillow most of the time.
In each location I tried to unpack as best I could, which included putting clothes on hangers or in drawers, so I didn’t feel so much like I was living out of a suitcase. If I needed space, I retreated to my bedroom for solitary time.
On a couple of occasions, when something was bugging me about the house that I could influence, I dealt with it myself, rather than expecting that the host would meet my expectations.
And, I wore comfortable slip-on shoes inside! We’re very used to Japanese houses, where the floor is fairly free of debris, I find walking around in bare feet or socks in most Australian house difficult. I also find it's "unrelaxing" to always be wearing outside shoes inside.
Reflecting
As I write all this down, I realise why I'm struggling to regain my full strength, other than still recovering from two respiratory infections in the last six weeks. It's exhausting being a guest. It's exhausting moving around from place to place. You are outside your own family culture, or as a parent, you've brought your family culture with you and you're trying to do your best to make sure your family are good guests. When you're at home with your usual family in your usual accommodation, you are most relaxed. Most of the unwritten rules are understood. Daily life happens relatively smoothly, because you have routines that work for you. (I know of course that that is the ideal, that there is always some level of friction when people live together, and probably even more so when you add children into the mix.)
However, I am very grateful to all those who generously hosted us. We're not a neat, easy-to-host family. We're a cross cultural family and some of our foibles are born of that. Other foibles are born of difficulty "reading the room" and mental illness. And some of our hosts caught us at the tail end of the nearly three months we spent as guests, and therefore did not catch us at our best.
I'm also grateful to finally be back in my own house, where the unwritten expectations are understood. Where I can choose what mountains to battle over. And where I can sleep on my own bed, with all my stuff in the places where I can find them.
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