Feather-bedding

Description

'Feather-bedding' is making things easy for the other person, pampering or spoiling them.

Keep an eye on how happy they are. If they are looking unhappy or even rather flat, look for ways to cheer them up.

Ways to feather-bed include:

Doing things for them they would otherwise have to do themselves.

Giving them 'little luxuries' that they would not get for themselves.

Pre-empting their desires, getting them things before they realize they want them.

Having things ready for them when they come home, from slippers to a lovely meal.

Feather-bedding can be a gift, a special change from the norm. It can also be persistent approach that keeps the person in the lap of luxury.

Discussion

When you make things easy for others, doing things for them or smoothing their way forward, this makes them feel comfortable and increases their desire for this state to continue.

The main power of mollycoddling is the implied threat of withdrawal. When a person gets used to luxury, thoughts of losing this can be sufficient to make them want to keep the person providing the luxury very happy. And so they need to keep you happy.

We are highly adaptive people and many of us will quickly get used to feather-bedding, seeing it more as normal than a luxury. Persistent feather-bedding can hence make people lazy and dependent, which you may or may not want.

Mothers who mollycoddle their children do this, 'tying them to the apron strings' and thereby making it difficult for the child to progress as an independent person. Companies feather-bed valued customers, making switching to competitors difficult. They may even increase employee loyalty with degrees of feather-bedding.

The traditional role of the housewife was to feather-bed for her husband. In western society, this is no longer the case, to the delight of many women and secret sadness of many married man.

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Feather-bedding

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