In the episode of KUWTK that is about to air, we see Khloe requesting Kourtney’s help to do up her brand new Calabasas mansion. Just to be klear, Kourtney is not grouting the bathroom or scraping off dodgy wallpaper, just making helpful suggestions along the lines of, ‘If you’re going to sit down in this room, you should get some chairs or maybe a sofa.’ At the end of the episode, Kourtney gives Khloe a bill for a quarter of a hundred thousand dollars.
In theory, your siblings, and very best friends, should be paid in love and favours. You take turns to buy rounds and help each other move house. If one of you gives the other a lift, the person in the passenger seat should offer to chip in for petrol money. You don’t expect the driver to turn around and say, ‘That was forty quid, would you like a receipt?’’ Otherwise, you would have just gone with Uber.
At first, I thought that Kourtney had gone mad with kash lust (or her ASOS habit was worse than ours and she had some giant debts to settle). Surely, you have to be seriously selfish to bill your flesh and blood for services rendered? But the more I considered it, the more sense it made. If Kourtney purports to be an interior designer, she has a business to run – and it’s rude for friends and relatives to jump the queue and assume you’ll give away your services for free.
The reason that David Cameron’s Big Society didn’t quite work the way it was supposed to is that goodwill is impossible to govern. We all want to think of ourselves as good, loveable people, who will share and help. However, when our generosity is presumed upon, we get a bit edgy. And if anyone knows how to overstep the boundaries, it’s our relatives.
Growing up, I was the brattiest big sister, and my worst habit was rifling through my sisters’ wardrobes and absconding with their stuff – sometimes when it was brand new and they hadn’t worn it themselves. My sisters are now getting their own back by working their way through my fridge and broadband allowance whenever they come to stay. I’m fine with that – but I’m not sure how I’d feel if one of them rang me up and demanded a 2,000 word op ed on Bobby Norris’s HD eyebrows by lunchtime, for free.
I’m lucky because my job has an extremely limited amount of usefulness, but if I were a plumber I’m sure I’d be tapped up (I’m sorry) more often. And where do you draw the line between paid work and a favour?
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‘It’s always incredibly tricky to blur the personal and professional,’ says family counselor Jane Brettingham. ‘It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s not always appropriate for your friends and family to ask for a favour that essentially costs you money. However, there’s a big difference between telling your family that you can’t give them free dental work or legal advice, and asking your Dad for £10 to wash the car.
‘You need to be upfront about where your boundaries lie. I would have suggested that Kourtney started by telling Khloe that the job was going to be time-consuming and she’d need to charge for it, but she’d be happy to recommend an alternative designer if Khloe preferred.’
‘My brother is a dentist and he’s really generous about giving me free check-ups, fillings. etc – but I always make sure I pay him back, even if it’s just by buying him dinner,’ says my mate Natasha, 25. ‘He says that he’s happy with the arrangement because I know that his job has a real value, but he’s said no to distant aunties and cousins because they expect him to treat them for free, and he thinks it’s rude.’
Natasha’s experiences demonstrate the point at which money, work and family tensions explode. If a family member wants to use your services for free, they’re implying they don’t really value your career – or you.
I love my family, and I want to help them out whenever I can. After all, I know they’d do the same for me. I could never deny anything to a person who has, at some stage in my life, changed my pooey nappy. That said, if they ever made me feel like my work was worthless and I was being taken for granted, I’d change my mind faster than you can say, ‘Do you want a VAT receipt?’
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Follow Daisy on Twitter @NotRollerGirl
Picture: Lukasz Wierzbowski
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.