Family

With everyone’s permission, add one person to your family group chat. Ideally, choose someone that the other people in your family have met. The new sibling could be a cousin, childhood friend, or neighbor, for example. Treat the person as a full member of the chat and try to have a bit of conversation every day. Include them in your family's plans, send photos, make requests, and encourage your new sibling to participate naturally rather than merely observe. The new sibling should then send you a brief sibling report describing the family’s apparent rules and roles and any questions they haave about your family. 

At the end of the assignmnent, remove them from the chat and reflect on the way your new sibling changed the family dynamic. For example, how long did it take for inside jokes and family roles to become visible? Did the new sibling begin to acquire a role in the family? What distinguishes a sibling from a close friend or cousin? In light of the readings on special obligation and the family, think about whether family membership is created by biology, history, obligation, intimacy, or participation? 

Evidence: Screenshots from the group text 

Draft a constitution for your family that specifies articles and provisions about chores, privacy, guest, curfew, property claims, lending and borrowing, technology, who controls the AC/heat, vacations, birthday obligations, and a procedure for conflict resolution and disputes. Send the constitution to your family group text and start the conversation for a convention. Identify which provisions actually accepted and which they rejected. What were their reasons? Why are families governed so differently from states? Which political values belong inside families, and which do not?

Evidence: Scrrenshots 

Write a "Parental Report Card" for one of your parents or another adult who raised you. Then fill it out and give them grades. Next, ask that person to make their own report card and to grade themselves as a parent by those standards. Compare the results.

Reflection: Why did your evaluations differ? What makes someone a good parent?

Carry an egg with you for four days as though it were an infant. Set a timer on your phone to go off every 4 hours, and take a picture of your egg at that time. The egg should remain with you whenever practical. You should not intentionally expose your egg to unnecessary risk. If it breaks you automatically lose one point on the assignment 

Reflection: What aspects of caregiving are captured by this exercise? What aspects are completely absent? Does the egg teach responsibility, or does it trivialize parenting? Did you name your egg? Did you like the attention and/or status you got from bringing your egg with you? 

Evidence; Egg photos with time stamps