Whose fault is it?

Mornings drive me crazy... I savor the extra 3 minutes snooze of the alarm clock. It goes off like 5-6 times until I m fully up. Then I rush preparing my eldest for school, making breakfast, having my coffee, showering, preparing my youngest for school, sending her to school and buying groceries. When I get home, most of the time I am still not awake...! I am just a slow starter in the morning...

Becrause of my slow motion in the morning, sometimes my youngest arrives in school late. I feel guilty about that and try my best to be faster in the morning, to let go my 3-minute snooze, and to have stronger coffee.. But nevertheless sometimes she still comes late to school, not only caused by my slow motion but unexpected traffic jam, can't find parking spot, sudden stomach ache, bring wrong bag so have to turn around, forget to bring her book, my bad hair day, etc etc

When those things happens, she usually doesn't care because her kindergarten teacher doesn't scold her. But last week, when we were late, she asked me,"whose fault is it that we are late?" "Is it your fault or my fault?"

I was taken back by her questions. I didn't like the sound of her voice and definitely I didn't like the fact that she is trying to find who to blame, which was me of course..(i couldn't let go my 3-minute snooze).

Long time ago in one of the management classes, i learned to find "what is wrong" when something unpleasant happens, not so much of "whose fault is it". I tried to practice it in my work life as well as my personal life. It was frustating because very often my instinct told me to ask "whose faults". We love to find someone to blame. It gives us a feeling of being better or even smarter.

While it is ok to ask who did the wrong thing to find out what happened so we can correct the mistakes, very so often we stop at that point and concentrate on blaming, scolding, or even hitting the person until he/she looks like an oxymoron surrounded by einsteins. We forget on correcting the mistakes. What we usually do after that is telling other people that the disaster was caused by an oxymoron who deserves nothing but a severe punishment. Then people start talking like they are the smarter ones who never make mistakes.

Usually in that situation I would interrupt and try to get people start finding solutions to the problem and leave the oxymoron alone so he/she can open the window and jump from the building and go crying on his/her mommy's shoulder.

But when I do that, people think I am being a defence attorney of that oxymoron and start talking to me as if I were the one who created the whole disaster or part of the disaster makers.

Because of that, I started to be quiet when things go bad. I would just listen and only react when people ask me for help. I know it's wrong and I do feel bad about it. But there are times that I just want to be selfish and mind my own business. I just play safe even if it makes me look more stupid than an oxymoron. At least I don't need to deal with loud accusing voices that can break my eardrums. We all know how expensive and uncomfortable it is to have a broken eardrum fixed, right? Just not worthed.