Nevada City, CA — Children across America are unwittingly, and in some cases deliberately, engaging Machiavellian maneuvers during chore time to offload their chores to other less savvy siblings.
“I don’t know how I ended up with the loading and unloading the dishwasher, folding laundry and vacuuming,” said a frustrated 9-year-old Amy Mae Crawford of Nevada City. “My older brother Dirk said he’d trade me for some Halloween Candy, but I don’t think he has any.”
Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He was a founder of modern political science, and more specifically political ethics. Machiavellianism is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct.”
According to sources close to the Crawford Family, 12-year-old Dirk does not have any Halloween candy as it is July, and all of his candy was consumed in a binge eating frenzy on the 31st of October.
“I don’t see what the issue is,” said a mouthy Dirk Crawford in a somewhat distracted phone interview. “A deal is a deal. She agreed to it. So we’re good. right?”
According to Martha Crawford, Dirk and Amy’s mother, there has always been a power struggle in the household. And that her daughter is not without blame either.
“I know Amy likes to play the victim, because there is negotiating power there,” said a confident Mr. Crawford, “but she can be just as Machiavellian as her brother when it comes to getting what she wants.”
Ms. Crawford says Amy typically leverages the authority of her or her husband to get what she wants, usually by fabricating a fake narrative.
“The other day she wanted to watch her show on the TV,” explained Ms. Crawford. “So she came in and told Will [her father] that Dirk was watching Game of Thrones on the DVR. She ran off and we heard her say ‘busted’ in the other room.”
