I got you a present
July 03, 2011
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I think I mentioned this when talking about littles, but it's important and it bears repeating. Be very careful about giving all the goodies and rewards to only the residents that ask, that pout, that show obvious joy in receiving. Even the guests who don't seem to be on-board are acting on the behalf of the system. They may be stuck defending you from things that no longer exist, or defending you in the wrong ways from the wrong people, but the underlying motivation is still to serve the system in some way.
Rewards should be spread around. If you're always getting ice cream for the littles but not getting the rare steak for your internal werewolf, it's not very fair. Of course any of the rewards need to be OK with your residents and pass your house rules, so if you've agreed by vote to be a vegetarian system, the rare steak is out of line. But it's an illustration of what can often happen when we spoil some of our residents and neglect others. We might buy new comics or coloring books, but do we get film for the photographer, or a nice dress for the clothes horse?
Now, most multiples I know are not well off. You might use some of the tips I give in talking about shopping with my littles and come up with a shopping list and a budget during a meeting where you have the leisure to make sure your acquisitions are in-line with your roll call. If you're going to go for physical item rewards then consider shopping dollar stores, thrift stores or better yet Freecycle and item swaps. Along with getting "stuff" make sure you also purge "stuff" that doesn't help you feel good. You might find the tips and system at FlyLady or House Fairy helpful.
Give some deep consideration to how you reward your internals and give them things to feel good about -- not just items. There's other presents -- things you can make for each other, trips and experiences, watching old movies you already own, front time, cooking someone's favorite meal, spending time with your favorite people, etc.
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