House Rules & Setting Boundaries

Our latest experiment adulting: making commitments to incoming guests in our home


Painting above: Drinking Party with a Lute Player (c.1623) by Nicolas Tournier



I recently observed to my spouse and friends that the idea and discourse around boundaries seems to very much be a generational thing that has changed a lot in our lifetime. 

For example, my friends and sister are raising their kids in a culture of consent and boundaries, and I couldn't be happier for it to be honest. 

It really is different from how folks my age in North America were raised, and I have found that people in our parent's generation tend to struggle with the idea of boundaries a lot more. Like what if your grandkids don't want to hug you? What if I don't want to hug you? What if we decide that the healthiest thing for us at a certain time is to not talk with a given member of the family? It's complicated and also not. The conversation is changing and it's interesting/exciting to see.

Read this next: Touch Too Much: Let’s Talk about Consent beyond Sex by Dr. Melissa A. Fabello over at Bitch

Reading The Art of Gathering

With this in mind, I recently read The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters by Priya Parker. Parker's (excellent) book got me thinking about opening up our new home to people for the first time since the pandemic. This space is our first home purchase, and our space to define in a way that we've never really experienced before. There was also the trepidation of having people in our home and socializing after a year of well, not having that.

I was worrying about all this a lot, especially with certain folks in my family who have been problematic presences in our home before. Thinking of Parker's work, I decided to propose something new to my spouse: what if we made house rules or guidelines for our guests? 

We would send them out to everyone (just once, before their initial visit) prior to them arriving. A bold and unusual idea to be sure.

(Side note: Parker doesn't mention this idea in her book, so if she ever reads this and is horrified, know that it was her book that inspired the idea, not her own idea per se.)

So, we sat down together and drafted up some house rules. The fruits of our labour are below and we have already sent this out to three different sets of guests we have had in our home.

--

We are so thrilled to open our home up to visitors after eight months of us living in this new space during the pandemic. This move has been a major transition for us, defining the next phase of our life and marriage. We hope our home will be a safe and welcoming space for friends and family alike, and are excited for the responsibility that comes with this new era of home ownership!

These expectations are an agreement and a conversation.

Our commitment to our guests

  • While you are in our home, our focus will be with you (not on phones, TVs, etc)
  • Under our roof, all guests will be treated with equally with compassion and empathy
  • We are committed to conducting ourselves with integrity
  • We endeavour to make our space as accessible and inclusive as possible (i.e. respect for sobriety, scent-reduced space, diets, etc)

Our expectations for our guests

  • To respect our neighbours and community as we do 
  • To communicate expectations and accessibility requirements to us with as much notice as possible
  • Liberty Bell will be the only pet in our space
  • The precise location of our home will be kept private (on social media and at large)
  • You treat us and other guests with dignity (i.e. we do not tolerate sexism, homophobia, fatphobia, etc)

In addition, there are a couple COVID19-specific requests we have:

  • Masks must be worn in common building areas (ex, parking lot, elevator, etc)
  • Please be aware that some electronics in our home (i.e. laptops, monitors) are on loan from our employers for WFH (work from home)

We thank you sincerely for reading this and look forward to having you in our home.

--

The Results

I would say that we at least have felt good about this and it has greatly lessened our general anxiousness.

2/3 groups of guests we have had in our home thus far have had absolutely zero issues with this email/the commitments. The third group struggled to understand but their visit went off without a hitch and we would have them again.

With my birthday coming up the end of this month we will likely be having more people over and you can bet they will be getting this email. If anything, it's been an experiment in adulting.


Watch this next: How to Set Boundaries with Blair Imani or check this out.

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