There often is one partner, who is the main income earner and the other carries the main responsibility for looking after the home. - Not an easy task!

If both are working full-time, the question of how you set enough time and energy aside to manage the needs of your home, is even more pressing.

Yet, we somehow need to manage all the maintenance our home requires, to make it the place where we meet in a safe and intimate environment, that nurtures and protects us.

Of course, it is easy to say: Share the load, establish routines, distribute responsibilities, negotiate the importance and relevance of jobs that need doing, ask for help, employ someone, …. but the reality of staying on top of it can be tough and stressful on any relationship.

I’m writing this to encourage you to actually speak about this with each other (children included) and explore the importance the condition of the home has to you. Talking points could be-

• how important is tidiness to you?

• how important is cleanliness?

• are all rooms equally important to be tidy/ clean?

• do we need to establish a ‘bottom line’?

• are there jobs that we can outsource?

These conversations will have to be ongoing, as everyone’s circumstances, attitudes and needs evolve. Always remember, that you are in this together. For example, if there are different expectations of cleanliness, it is important that everyone compromises somehow to find a level that is worth it for everyone…. and sometimes, we just have to give in, if something is of utter importance to a member of our family. Remember: Nobody is right or wrong- you are all in this together. The home belongs to all of you.

If you avoid having these conversations, you are likely to breed resentment, which will make it really hard to enjoy life together and to enrich each other: Not good! Bad for love. :-)

In my experience, it is most important to involve the children from a very young age. - Just to be clear: This is for their sake, not so much for yours. It is empowering, and the opposite is also true: If you do everything for them, you are dis-empowering them. Even when our kids were little, we tidied up together with them, straight after playing, as part of the activity. Make sure to do it in a playful way, never as a chore. And never have it questioned or imply that it is an option - it is just what we do!

Another tip is to start ‘chores’ as a privilege: I never forget the sight of our shorty little daughter standing on a chair, reaching into the sink to do the dishes, with her mum’s massively oversized rubber gloves she insisted on wearing. She was beaming with pride!

You will be grateful for the time you spent with them when they were little, as once they become teenagers, chaos wants to take over for a while ….. ( I’m not sure if this is a rule, but both our kids stopped being tidy and had rather messy teenage years, but ultimately turned into very tidy and organised adults.)

Talk about time,- I found it difficult to give the littlies their ‘chores’ and see that it takes them f-o-r-e-v-e-r to do the simplest thing. I could have done it in a minute, and here I am, reminding them to finish xyz after an hour…. or three….. Be patient, it is time well spent. (Practising patience also is good for you ;-)

They need to learn these things to keep their stuff together in life, to be active, structured, and capable to see processes through to the end.

Never nag or you loose your authority. The nagging person takes everyone else’s ownership away.