photo by Olga Degtyareva
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query /50/50. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query /50/50. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday, January 31, 2025
Generous partners
photo by Olga Degtyareva
Monday, June 5, 2023
Aim high; be generous
Don't aim for 50/50.
If 50% is right, then 49% is wrong, and 65% would be something get angry about.
If you both aim for more than half, you'll meet around the middle, around half the time. If you want the other person to stick around, "around" is the goal.
photo by Dan Vilter
Monday, September 26, 2016
Don't measure.
I've given this advice to newlyweds, and to my children about roommates:

Don't aim for 50/50.
If 50% is right, then 49% is wrong, and 65% would be something get angry about.
If you both aim for more than half, you'll meet around the middle, around half the time. If you want the other person to stick around, "around" is the goal,
SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
photo by Sandra Dodd
Don't aim for 50/50.
If 50% is right, then 49% is wrong, and 65% would be something get angry about.
If you both aim for more than half, you'll meet around the middle, around half the time. If you want the other person to stick around, "around" is the goal,
photo by Sandra Dodd
Friday, May 17, 2013
Much more than half
Don't aim for 50/50.
If 50% is right, then 49% is wrong, and 65% would be something get angry about.
If you both aim for more than half, you'll meet around the middle, around half the time. If you want the other person to stick around, "around" is the goal.
photo by Sandra Dodd
P.S. Nearly six years later and three houses later, Kirby still lives with that roommate, who is engaged. He and his fianceé custom-ordered a new home, designed to accommodate Kirby comfortably.
2020 update: Thirteen years later, Kirby is married, with three children, in a house in Albuquerque. They all get along sweetly.
Something looks like this:
equipment,
machine,
perspective
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Snowbanks and socks
I was thinking the other day about husbands and chores and how many people I've heard say that it shouldn't be their job to pick up after their husband. I never thought of picking up my husband's things as being my cleaning up after him - I've only thought of it as cleaning our house. Does it matter whose laundry or dishes they are? Does he shovel only his own side of the driveway and leave me to climb snowbanks to get to my side of the car? Dividing things yours-and-mine, even socks, in one's internal thoughts doesn't seem to add much happiness.
but another good link would be
Why 50/50 is a problem
photo by SandraDodd
of Ester Siroky's kitchen, one day
Friday, September 4, 2015
Happily, with a purpose
Once when a new video game was to come out in three weeks or so, I overheard Marty and Kirby discussing at length and without any frustration all the different combinations of ownership and funding might be possible for them to put their allowance together and buy it. If Kirby contributed as much as Marty's allowance, they could be co-owners, but wouldn't have enough to get it the day it was released. Could Marty owe Kirby, and buy in up to 50% later? Should Marty just own a lesser percentage? I think they were 9 and 12 or so. It was complicated math, with all those percentages of increments of age times .75, but they were doing it, and just in their heads, and happily, with a purpose.
They didn't think to ask us for help. They didn't feel they needed to.

SandraDodd.com/money
photo by Sandra Dodd, of my kids playing Zoombinis,
not a Nintendo or Playstation game,
but their ages match the story above.
NOTE: I hope your family can afford more, but our kids got seventy-five cents per year of age, weekly. So in the example above, if they were 9 and 12, Marty was getting $6.75 and Kirby was getting $9.00. Console games were $50 or $60 in those days.
They didn't think to ask us for help. They didn't feel they needed to.

SandraDodd.com/money
photo by Sandra Dodd, of my kids playing Zoombinis,
not a Nintendo or Playstation game,
but their ages match the story above.
NOTE: I hope your family can afford more, but our kids got seventy-five cents per year of age, weekly. So in the example above, if they were 9 and 12, Marty was getting $6.75 and Kirby was getting $9.00. Console games were $50 or $60 in those days.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Quietly and gently play

Jigsaw puzzles are wonderful, and you can get them at yard sales and thrift stores for less than a dollar. Greeting cards cost $2 now, but you can get a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle for 50 cents and so what does it matter if it might have a piece or three missing? Cheaper than a greeting card. Work it and throw it away.
While you’re working it, the picture on the box will inspire questions, stories, ideas, tangents. The shapes of the pieces will remind people of other connections in their lives. Except for those toddlers who eat puzzle pieces, puzzles can involve people of all ages together. There are some on the market now with big pieces at one end, medium in the middle, and small for the rest. Some bright parent thought THAT up. They’ll be coming soon to a yard sale near you.
That was written in 1999; greeting cards can be $4 and $5 now, and used puzzles might be $2.
image by Sandra Dodd, made with a scanner (pieces set face down)
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Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Safety and communication

My children have no reason to dodge or manipulate..., because Keith and I haven't concocted any made-up arbitrary rules and their accompanying punishments. With safety and communication as principles and priorities, we've had safe, communicative kids.
photo by Sandra Dodd
P.S.: That probably only works only if you begin very early.
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Thursday, May 9, 2019
Being calm about food

What has been "medically correct" about diet has changed over and over and over just within my lifetime—every part of a hamburger has been glorified and villified in turn. Every part of a pizza has been the best and worst part, at some point in the past 50 years. Skim milk/whole milk, margarine, artificial sweeteners, eggs, iceberg lettuce, honey, cheese, water (amounts), salt, wine, bread—terror or wonder.
Angels and devils
photo by Amy Milstein
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Learning without clocks
Our culture has this "hour" and "half hour" thing that is as unnatural and arbitrary as can be. It has to do with clocks, not with people. It has to do with salaries and billing.
Be wary of scheduling and measuring, while deschooling.
photo by Kinsey Norris
Something looks like this:
child,
playground,
playing,
water
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Puzzles without pressure

Jigsaw puzzles are wonderful, and you can get them at yard sales and thrift stores for less than a dollar. Greeting cards cost $2 now, but you can get a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle for 50 cents and so what does it matter if it might have a piece or three missing? Cheaper than a greeting card. Work it and throw it away.
While you’re working it, the picture on the box will inspire questions, stories, ideas, tangents. The shapes of the pieces will remind people of other connections in their lives. Except for those toddlers who eat puzzle pieces, puzzles can involve people of all ages together. There are some on the market now with big pieces at one end, medium in the middle, and small for the rest. Some bright parent thought THAT up. They’ll be coming soon to a yard sale near you.
That was written in 1999; greeting cards can be $4 and $5 now, and used puzzles might be $2.
image by Sandra Dodd, made with a scanner (pieces set face down)
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
It makes much more sense

Ben Lovejoy wrote:
When we learned how to ride a bike, we thought that first way that we learned was the only way that a bike could be ridden. There was just no other way. Having ridden over 10,000 miles of roads and over 50 bike trails in the past six years, I can tell you that my initial experience on a bike was nothing like I've had as an adult. As with my cycling, I've realized there is more than one way to live our lives. Living life based upon principles is a better way for me than living by rules. It's more honest, respectful, truthful, and makes much more sense. Principles have allowed me to figure out that music is a journey and not a destination that ends when I reached a certain age. Principles have allowed me to realize that riding a bike is a means and not an end. Principles have allowed me to think further about better ways to parent than using someone else's rules. Principles, in short, do not limit me the way that rules once did.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, October 23, 2015
Foundations and preventions

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:
Asking how to prevent kids from lying is sort of like asking how to get a steeple bell 50 feet into the air. The answer begins with building a foundation on the ground which hardly sounds like a way to get something into the air.
—Joyce Fetteroll
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, March 27, 2023
Just say no
or to treat them harshly,
just say no.
on the page that links to Logic
photo by Holly Dodd
Friday, May 19, 2023
Patient, generous, kind
If you remember how exciting a little mechanical ride could be when you were a child, try to keep some coins on hand to indulge your young children.
If you don't have young children, consider keeping coins for offering rides to other children whose parents are tired or don't have what makes those little rides go.
If you don't remember being very young, for just 20p (or 50¢, or your local equivalent), if you're lucky and open to growth, you could live vicariously through another young person.
Patience, generosity and kindness make a person better.
A patient, generous, kind person makes the world better.
photo by Sandra Dodd, 2011, in Bristol
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The history of now
What has changed? Some once-important products are long gone. Modern construction becomes historical architecture even while people are living in it. Clothing styles "come back." Musicians "cover" older songs. Movie costume and make-up can reflect the time movies are made even if the costumes are supposed to depict centuries past. Readers can look at the science fiction of 50 or 100 years ago with nostalgia for what people used to believe might make future sense.
People make their own connections, involving cars, hair, maps, science, language, furniture, food and humor, so a rich life provides the materials for learning history.
SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Sandra Dodd
(clickable link)
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People make their own connections, involving cars, hair, maps, science, language, furniture, food and humor, so a rich life provides the materials for learning history.
photo by Sandra Dodd
(clickable link)
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