Changing Roles, Honest sight

In a complete role reversal I had to ask my son if I could buy an application for my iPhone. I have always kept the iTunes account in my name and have attached my credit card to the account for purchases. Chase asked several weeks ago if he could swap the account to his debit card so he could make a purchase. It seemed easier than charging my card and him making the reimbursement to me later.
Well, it was my turn to buy an app so I asked if he wanted to swap the account back. He didn’t. So I asked if I could buy a $1.99 app. He went straight to the computer to see if he could find a free one equal to the one I wanted to buy. I didn’t like any of the free ones. Then he tried to find a cheaper app than the one I wanted. I didn’t like any of those either, so he let me but the one I wanted. But it took some work on my part to get it out of him.
Sometimes we loose sight of how our role in any given situation plays into the overall scheme of things. Like with my son, we can become so focused on what we see that we forget that those around us may see things very differently. Chase, for example, though he is totally dependent on Mama and me for his needs often sees us as infringing on his life when we ask what to us seems to be the simplest of requests – especially when Mama asks.
Picking up the folded cloths from the back of the chair and moving them 20 inches to the dresser is viewed as overbearing, let alone asking that the clothing be put away in the dresser drawers. Taking out the trash is an infringement on his free time, then to add the duty of replacing the full bag with an empty one. It almost begs legal intervention.
My perspective is somewhat different. From my perspective, in about ten days he will leave for a month in Costa Rica – funded by Mom and Dad. I rarely get him up before 10 a.m., nor do I ask that he be available for chores – because I am not doing any projects. So he is free to move from the computer to the x-box to the TV and back again to shuffle his boredom around our apartment. He’s having such a hard time enjoying his summer. Still, it is hard to see myself as the bad guy.
I told Chase that when all his siblings left for college he would be a little overexposed to his mother’s need for help at different times. It is well within her rights to ask for and receive this help. I also said that if he was willing to watch me he could learn how to interact with his mother in a way that would teach him how to properly treat the woman he will eventually marry.
So far we are not doing well on either one of those issues, but there is still time.