I was in a Dallas hotel, still wearing the tie I had loosened during our video call. Ethan had smiled at the camera. My stepson, Jayden, had held up his new iPad.
Andy, I took this in your kitchen this morning. Before you call anyone, please look at both columns.
The refrigerator in the photograph was mine.
So were the crooked Oklahoma City magnet, the grocery list, and the picture of two boys wearing matching baseball caps.
The chore chart wasn’t.
ETHAN: Dishes every night. Vacuum downstairs. Vacuum upstairs. Walk Duke before school. Walk Duke after dinner. Trash. Both bathrooms. Saturday yard work.
JAYDEN: Homework. iPad time.
There was a smiling face beside Jayden’s name.
I enlarged the photograph until I could see a blue smear beneath the word bathrooms. My twelve-year-old son’s column reached almost to the bottom of the page. My wife’s eleven-year-old son had no household work assigned at all.
