“Passive-aggressive Chicken” is a phenomenon that happens when there is a chore that obviously needs doing, but nobody does it. The obviousness of the chore increases exponentially over time because people keep contributing to its need to be done. If, for example, you’ve ever allowed your recycling bin to get precariously full in hopes that the other person(s) in your household will empty it, you have participated in this phenomenon. It can be applied to laundry, yardwork, dishes, garbage—so many things! It’s a non-fun game and everybody loses.

So how do you win this sometimes literally precarious game? 1) By making the IMPLICIT expectations of your family’s division of labor EXPLICIT* and/or 2) Having a family culture of asking for what you need, in a neutral way.

*swears optional

Chores can be like a volleyball game in a gym class which nobody gives two shits about—the ball sails over the net but instead of lobbing it back, the players closest to the ball watch it fall to the ground, each thinking the other will take care of it. But here’s the thing—everyone needs to participate for the game to work.

Having clear lines of jurisdiction—i.e., WHO does WHAT—can be extremely helpful in keeping things nice (on all levels). This requires open communication and verbal agreement that yes, I will take on this job. Assuming that one person or another does it because [insert patriarchal construct here] will likely cause resentment between parties. So like in this proverbial volleyball game, a simple crow of “I got it!” and then doing your part, can go a long way—especially provided that you continually “got it,” insofar as you have now volunteered for this chore.

Sometimes though, you are the gym teacher in this scenario and you need to ask one of the players to participate. You don’t want to lose your cool at the player and maybe get fired, so you might calmly try something like, “Would you please [do this chore] in the next [time frame] so that [mess can be avoided]?” Because messes make you feel big feelings and in order to head off engendering those big feelings, you ask for your needs to be met. (See also, non-violent communication). And by the way, the player might have not even noticed that they were in gym class, they were so busy attending to the requirements of math class, so it was helpful that you reminded them that they were still in PE.

(OK this metaphor is getting tired from running laps around the building so I will dismiss it now…)

Really though, we want everyone to win. So use your words to diminish assumptions, not each other.