By Stacy DeBroff 

So much about delegation falls back onto gender issues that we continue to wrestle with, many of us having grown up with full-time Moms at home modeling themselves on June Cleaver and with Dads who took little responsibility for housekeeping and child-rearing.

As women, we struggle to find a harmonious blend of our preconceived notions of what it means to be "The Mom" with having a career or a life outside of kids. Those of us who work full-time often feel exasperated and overwhelmed by the extra burdens that await us at the end of each day. Those of us working part-time feel as if we straddle two worlds and do neither as well as we should.

And as full-time Moms we feel reluctant to put additional demands on our partners, who bear the responsibility of earning income for our family. What a muddle! Yet the burden of running your family and home, particularly given the mundane details and repetitive tasks involved, needs to be shared so that we can capture the joy that parenting brings as we watch our kids grow and explore the world. So here goes our best thinking on the pragmatics of switching out of Lone Ranger mode and engaging, in particular, the help of your partner.

CREATE A LARGER VISION

You can instill even the most mundane household jobs with a higher sense of purpose by emphasizing to your partner how these tasks build a cohesive, smooth running family life, create your home as a sanctuary for family members, and ultimately enable you to raise loving and secure kids. It elevates the everyday-ness of household tasks and inspires your family to feel part of something much more important.

Doing the laundry and arranging for after-school activities becomes part of creating the type of family life for your kids that nurtures them and enables them to grow up into exemplary adults.

By sharing this vision with your partner, you can inspire him to pitch in more and minimize complaints along the way.

SHARE THE MANAGEMENT, NOT JUST THE TASKS

Rather than doling out specific weekly tasks on an as-needed basis, assign permanent responsibility for some tasks to your partner, so you can stop being the person who, by default, assumes the role of manager who has to make sure everything gets done.

Make a complete inventory of all the tasks that need attention daily, weekly, and seasonally. Consider which areas you and your partner like the most and deem important, and what you and your partner dislike the most.

Negotiate an equitable division of labor with your partner so that you each take on areas of responsibility that appeal to you, divvy up the routine and mundane, and share in aspects of child care and nurturing so that both manage that area, instead of one person taking charge of everything and the other "helping out."

Don’t just shunt off the tasks you don’t like or the tasks that men normally do around the house. Draw on your partner’s strengths, engaging him in areas of responsibility he enjoys the most or finds least onerous. Perhaps one of you enjoys grocery shopping each week or cannot abide piles of laundry. Does one of you like to cook or work in the yard?

Give each person the chore that he or she is most likely to keep up with, and hold your own chore lottery for the ones that no one will claim. Or, for those tasks no one likes, switch around who’s in charge by the month and take turns.

How you divide responsibility depends on lots of factors, from the age and number of family members to how much in-home help you can afford.
On certain tasks, you may agree to divide and conquer and use the tag team approach. For instance, one partner entertains the kids, the other partner focuses on household tasks, then you switch. When one person cooks, the other person cleans up.

Lastly, let some things go. Do a little less around the house. Give your partner a chance to take initiative.

SET CLEAR EXPECTATIONS

Detail everything that each area of responsibility entails before your partner takes it on. Vague responsibilities like "keeping the bathroom clean" can mean anything from straightening up to major mop and disinfectant projects.

Talk through how you will respond when one person falls significantly behind in his or her responsibilities, and the basic standards to which you will hold each other accountable.

Set aside a time to review progress and discuss how to improve the process as well as the outcome.

LET YOUR PARTNER DECIDE WHEN THE WORK IS UNDERTAKEN

Agree on a general weekly or seasonal time frame within which the task needs to get done, and allow your partner, as the person in charge, to decide when to do it.

If time is of the essence, offer a concrete explanation as to why, such as "we have company coming over," and set a firm deadline for completion, such as "and the company arrives at 6:00."

Agree ahead of time what the appropriate consequences are for neglecting a chore, such as something your partner must do for you.

GIVE UP CONTROL ON HOW THE WORK GETS DONE

Don’t micromanage or get overly involved once you have divided responsibilities.

If you want your partner to feel invested in housekeeping, he’s got to have some say in the matter. If you supervise every detail or direct your partner’s actions, you have not really delegated the work to be done.

In the beginning, offer to do the task together or show him how you go about it. You cannot expect your partner to read your mind about what needs to get done, or how you would go about doing it yourself. Offer limited help when your help is truly needed, not because of procrastination or ducking responsibility.

Feel free to explain the basic economics of cleaning properly: why clothes must be sorted by color before being washed, why the rug needs regular vacuuming. If your partner has drastically different standards for cleaning and organizing, let him know why you do things the way you do and how the long-term results will save time and money.

Let your partner decide how to accomplish the task in hand, as he may have a very different way of approaching it than you would.

COMPROMISE ON EXPECTATIONS AND ALLOW YOUR PARTNER TO CORRECT HIS OWN MISTAKES

Let go of any visions of perfection.

When you delegate, you often have to lower your standards, as your partner may fall short of how well you complete a task yourself. Be patient if at first he does not fold the sheets just right or he leaves streaks on all the mirrors he washes. Sometimes he has just as much learning ahead of him as the kids do.

Keep in mind your priority of de-burdening yourself, and that you will likely need to trade off quality control in order to lift the singular burden of responsibility.

Keep verbal criticism to yourself and curtail nonverbal signals of disapproval, such a long sighs, shaking your head, slamming doors, or storming off.

Do not step in to finish the task or to "do it right," though oftentimes nothing is more tempting than to step in with a sigh and complete unfinished tasks or botched jobs oneself. The problem is that while this serves to complete the discreet task at hand: you feel frustrated, your partner as the person responsible does not get a chance to learn from his mistakes, and it is bound to happen again.

Let your partner, as the person in charge, deal with the consequences. If the laundry is not pulled out of dryer immediately and becomes wrinkled, the person in charge of it may have do it over or start ironing. Or you may have live with rumpled laundry for now if it means that your partner feels good about helping out and it gives him time and incentive to get better at it across time...

PROVIDE LOTS OF PRAISE AND CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK

Use a little psychology. Let him know how well you think he’s re-engineered the storage spaces or how much the kids enjoy when he bathes them. We all enjoy a little praise and recognition for our hard work.

Showing appreciation and personal gratitude can be two radically different things. This especially pertains to the use of "thank you's" and asking for "help." When you ask for help or say you helped your partner with a task, it usually shows which one of you who bears the responsibility for that particular area. "Help me get dinner on the table" implies that you want volunteers to assist you this once with a chore that, every other day of the week, is yours alone to get done—which only works if every chore is not considered "yours," and you do not have to recruit help every time you need it. Saying "Thank-you" for a task in particular implies that your partner has done a personal favor just for you. Think about that each day as you say, "Thank you so much for emptying the dishwasher. Thank you for cleaning up after dinner. Thank you for giving the kids a bath." You’ll probably realize just how often we Moms tend to phrase appreciation this way. Switch to concrete praise, such as "The kids adored having you read them that scary book. Did you see the looks on their faces?"

One of the things that we do in our family is to award an "Order of the Realm" (an announcement to the whole the family accompanied by the sounds of trumpet fanfare and proclamations) to anyone who has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Instances of this include covering for an unexpected late night at work, running forgotten homework to school, or surprising the other person with a candle-lit homemade dinner. It never fails make the recipient feel like a hero who is greatly appreciated.

RE-EVALUATE THE DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITY EVERY FEW MONTHS

Address feelings of inequity.

Harbor no resentments and air them constructively.

Adjust for changes in workload, such as having a new baby, or a significant change in work responsibilities outside the home.

Aim to reach a long-term situation that both of you feel is fair.

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