Tighter ship?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Tighter ship?

After my dad returned to the city on Sunday, we seven looked to the yellow legal pad left on the dining room table - a page for each of us with a long list of chores to be tackled in the week ahead. Parents today might call this child abuse, but it was so much more. There was always enough time for fun, and we were at the shore all summer. He showed lots of love, and taught us responsibility, respect and duty along the way. He was a great captain, and we a good crew - maybe too good.

I’m now past middle age and have grown children of my own. My ship hasn’t been run even remotely tightly. My kids see vacuuming and taking out the trash as medieval chores best left for others. Painting, scraping, hanging out the tower: To them, this kind of work is as remote as the discovery of America.

I’ve figured out what went wrong in my own house: I became a victim of my own success. I was such a good crew member, I never learned to be a captain. I inherited my father’s passion for large old properties, and wanted to raise my children as I was raised.

But I was still just a crew member. I did all the work, couldn’t delegate, didn’t trust anyone to get it right. And as the years passed, I was a one-man crew: There was no tight ship, just a luxury cruise for my kids, with me stoking the boilers.