Bookkeeper or insect killer? Everyone has a role to play in a family

I avoid all of this. But here’s the thing: I possess “old man strength.” Really? You’ve never heard of it? Oh, it’s definitely a thing. I haven’t lifted a paperclip since 1992, but back in the 1980s, I built a mud brick house with my mate Phil. It was incredibly hard work, and once the muscles are there, well, that’s your “old man strength.”

It reminds me of the poem by C.J. Dennis about the old bullocky, “an enfeebled pensioner” who hobbles over to assist two young blokes whose bullock train has become stuck in mud. In the poem, his “old man muscles” are of the linguistic sort; all the same, his powers lie dormant until he receives his call to action.

That’s me. In the C.J. Dennis poem, back in 1910, it’s old Dad McGee and the stuck bullock dray. For me, here in 2024, it’s the stuck olive lid. Two things stuck. Two old men. Two stories of courage. Two inspiring tales.

I was thinking about my jam jar abilities after my friend Emma told me that she was now the “Birthday Notification Person” for her family. She’s the oldest daughter, so it’s somehow her responsibility to tell her 43 siblings – I think I have that right – that next Tuesday is the 13th birthday of the youngest sibling’s third or maybe fifth daughter. (It’s a big family).

As she told me this story, I thought, “This is great, but what’s my role in my own family?” Then I thought, “It’s OK. I have a role. I’m Jam Jar Guy.”

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I then wondered whether all families are like this. Does each person in the family have a designated role, whether they’ve chosen the role or had it forced upon them?

Certainly, some families have a scapegoat – a “scapie” – who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong. “The toilet is blocked. Bronwyn must have put something down it.”

Bronwyn, by this time, has long ago moved to the UK and is working as a film buyer at the BBC, or a bug researcher at the British Museum, or a beer puller at the Horse and Groom, but still, she’s blamed for a bunged-up Sydney toilet.

Or there’s the designated rat killer, which includes all manner of unwanted wildlife. Or the person who looks after the aged parent, while the other siblings try to pretend everything is fine. You do the work, but no one acknowledges its importance. How awful is that? Or there’s the deary lot of the Official Family Bill Payer, eye constantly on the incomings and the outgoings, wondering how long the gas bill can remain unpaid, or when some incoming cash might appear on the horizon.

Of course, I don’t want you to think I’m only Olive Guy because I’m also the Toilet Fixing Person—a task that is more time-consuming than you can possibly imagine unless you are also the Toilet Fixing Person.

So please forgive me for taking pleasure in opening an olive jar. Soon, there will be a toilet to fix, especially after Bronwyn has broken it.

I can only hope your family tasks have the same measure of pleasure and pain as mine.