Mindy was tired. Indeed, Mindy was just about worn out. Holding together a household of three children and a husband working odd-hours shifts took a lot. Mindy didn’t usually mind. Indeed, her life’s dream had been to love and care for a family. And so she was, as they say, living the dream. Yet her dream was wearing her out, to the point that she knew that she either needed to adjust or just needed help. Mindy had so far kept her peace. Several times, she had come close to the breaking point of complaining, blaming, and accusing. But Mindy had held her tongue, instead drawing each child aside for a quiet talk about helping out, while doing the same with her husband. And fortunately, the adjustments they made helped to the point that Mindy no longer felt so wearied and bitter.
Management
Family households require significant management. A well-run household can take skilled financial management, purchasing and supply activities, housekeeping, transportation activities, maintenance functions, scheduling functions, medical provisioning, and waste disposal. A suburban or rural home can feel a bit like its own small town or city, supporting all the necessary functions. Adding education and employment to the household only further complicates the management mix. Spouses are generally at the controls, handling the household management together with a reasonable division of labor. Yet that division can also be a source of household strife. Managing the household takes constant monitoring with occasional correction. It also wearies spouses at times. And when weariness sets in, questions naturally arise as to the fairness of the labor’s division. Maintaining a good family life requires thoughtful, consistent, dedicated, and sensitive household management.
Balance
Finding the right balance to household management can be key to maintaining a healthy and happy family life. Balance can involve how much management to do, how much each family member contributes to household management in proportion to other family members, and which family member does what tasks. Issues can arise when household management is either too strict or too lax. Too strict a household can leave everyone on tenterhooks. Too lax a household can lead to chaos and household systems failure. Help your family members find the right balance. Accountability to one another can be a related issue. Sometimes, the real concern of the spouse who is demanding stricter management is an inequity in contributions. If one spouse is shouldering all or most of the load, then the other spouse needs to step up. The natural tension is between a spouse whose work outside the home consumes the spouse’s energies and the spouse whose household management does likewise. Both spouses can feel that the other spouse isn’t holding up enough of one bargain or the other. Assigning household duties by skill can help. The better chef should cook, the better accountant should handle finances, the better at trades should do the maintenance, and the better at noticing dirt and dust might best provide the custodial care. Pay attention to the balance of household management. Involve children as soon as they’re capable.
Finances
Household financial management is the hidden beast. Ensuring paycheck deposits, monitoring the weekly and monthly budgets, checking account statements, paying bills, balancing the checkbook, and analyzing trends and ratios are all quiet tasks that take time. They are also tasks that spouses may ignore without obvious immediate issues. But ignore family finances at your peril. Inattention to finances can quickly crater a family’s budget. A failing budget can soon have obvious and deleterious impacts on the family, like a utilities shut-off, vehicle repossession, eviction notice, bounced check at the dentist’s office, and rejected credit card at the grocery checkout. See detailed discussion in the chapter on family finances. Also see the guide Help with Your Money. Determine which spouse has the stronger skill at each financial task. Then empower, equip, support, and recognize that spouse for household financial management.
Purchasing
Purchasing is a related household task but one that is more evident and immediate than back-of-house financial management. Someone must keep the kitchen stocked with groceries, toilet paper in the bathroom, detergent in the laundry room, and pet food in the pantry for the hungry dog and cat. Someone must buy fitting clothes and shoes for the children, soap and shampoo for the showers, and blankets and pillowcases for the bedrooms. Businesses have purchasing departments and managers to determine, monitor, and fulfill supply needs at appropriate cost. Households also have purchasing managers, usually the spouse with the keener shopping skills. Household purchasing isn’t just a matter of keeping the household stocked with goods. Household purchasing also needs to be wise and prudent. The goods your family buys need to be of a quality sufficient to fulfill their functions and to last a reasonable time. They should also come at a reasonable and affordable price. Value the contribution that timely, wise, and prudent purchasing makes to your family life. Recognize and support the one who manages the bulk of household purchasing. Divide purchasing responsibilities between you and your spouse according to your knowledge and skill of the items to acquire.
Housekeeping
Consistent housekeeping can also be a big contributor to family life, although often a thankless chore. A good housekeeper’s work can nearly go unnoticed, since so much of the work is simply to maintain the household’s basic cleanliness and order. Cleaning up the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher, cleaning bathrooms, picking up and putting away common items, sweeping, mopping, or vacuuming floors, washing windows, dusting surfaces, and sorting, washing, drying, folding, and putting away clothes can all be continual chores requiring significant time, energy, and attention. A good housecleaning can be invigorating but also exhausting. Housekeeping can be a good place for dividing duties and, in the case of children, assigning regular chores. Especially hold your children to consistently straighten up their own room and bedding, as a strengthening, character-building, and satisfying discipline, and parent timesaver, too.
Yardwork
Indoor housekeeping is one set of tasks, while outdoor yardwork is another set of tasks. Because these tasks involve two distinct areas, distinct schedules, and distinct skills, indoor and outdoor work can be another good household management area to divide between household members rather than to share duties. One spouse generally has a laundry plan indoors, for instance, while the other spouse may have a plan for mowing and watering the lawn. Sharing tasks or parts of the tasks may be fine and helpful, but not so much if they interfere with plans. Yardwork can also be a great place to involve the children, for the fresh air and physical exercise yardwork brings. Of course, don’t involve your children in hazardous mowing, fertilizing, aerating, tilling, and cutting until they are fully safe and reasonably capable. But shoveling, raking, weeding, digging, and similar simpler chores can keep children active, engaged, accountable, and contributing. A well-maintained lawn and outdoor space can contribute substantially to a good family life.
Transportation
Transportation is another area that can require thoughtful household management. Getting family members reliably and safely to school, work, church, the grocery store, and other places is a big part of a functioning family. In an urban setting, transportation may mean acquiring passes or coins for public transport, permits and leases for private-vehicle parking, and ride-sharing services, all matters better managed than left for haphazard actions. Transportation in any setting can also mean acquiring, insuring, and maintaining sensible, safe, and reliable vehicles at reasonable cost. Those tasks are a subject all their own, best managed by a knowledgeable spouse or one who is prepared to do the research. Families with driving-age children can end up managing a small fleet of vehicles, requiring close attention to maintenance and repair issues, the purchase and sale skills of a used-car-lot owner, and a prudent eye to costs. Don’t underestimate the value of skillful management of household transportation needs. Rely on the spouse with the skills, or divide the transportation responsibilities wisely.
Maintenance
Maintaining your family’s home is another task important to your family’s welfare. Maintenance, like financial management and housekeeping, is a task that not everyone immediately notices. Instead, families notice maintenance in its absence, when the furnace quits in the winter, the air conditioning quits in the summer, the lights flicker or go off at night, and the roof leaks in a rainstorm. Home maintenance is a continual task, involving regular inspection, scheduled tasks, and instant responses to system breakdowns. Furnace filters need changing seasonally. The HVAC system deserves an annual inspection. Gutters need cleaning seasonally and more often on inspection. Fire alarms need regular checking. But when a toilet plugs or water line springs a leak, it’s all hands promptly on deck. Often, a stitch in time can save nine. The spouse responsible for maintenance should be thoughtful, organized, and systematic, with a good eye and ear for system anomalies. Spouses should also watch utility costs and usage closely for evidence of errors, anomalies, and waste, and know or learn the better repair and replacement contractors. Value your home maintenance provider.
Medical
Family medical care is a peculiarly sensitive household management task because it involves financial, purchasing, and professional-services tasks, mixed with close personal care. Your family medical insurance can be one of the more-important financial and personal considerations you and your spouse face. Obtaining good coverage at reasonable cost, through employment or on the private market, can be essential both to your family’s access to a strong provider network and to protecting your family finances. When it comes to caring for ill family members, the critical tasks can include noticing health issues, particularly among your children, giving those issues their due priority, arranging for prompt diagnosis, and following through with acquiring medications, supplies, or devices, and scheduling further consults, testing, and treatment. Scheduling regular checkups, checkups necessary for school or sports participation, and regular dental care is also important to your family’s health. Ensure that you and your spouse are helping one another obtain medical care, while also making the medical care of your children its proper priority.
Health
You manage your household not for the satisfaction of running a well-oiled machine but instead to promote the health of your family members. While your effective management of the physical environment of the home contributes significantly to your family’s welfare, the health of your family members can also depend on good nutrition and exercise, a low or at least reasonable level of mental stress, and consistent emotional security. Pay attention to home cleaning, supplying, and maintenance. But pay more attention to your health, the health of your spouse, and the health of your children and other household family members. Your household may run like clockwork. But if your spouse or children are suffering from poor nutrition, excessive stress, battered emotions, bad relationships, lack of interest, lack of exercise, or other things, then you are not adequately managing your household. Keep the health of your family members at the forefront of your household management.
Reflection
How effectively do you and your spouse manage your family’s household? Is the division of household management equitable? Or do you or your spouse instead feel an inequity in that division? Do your family members, especially your spouse, feel that the family appreciates their contributions to household management? What words or actions might make your spouse or other family members feel greater appreciation for their contributions? Does your family have the right member in charge of its finances, with the right skills, time, attention, and commitment? If not, what adjustments do you need to make to ensure the management of your family’s finances? Who buys most of the goods that your family consumes? Are family purchases timely, prudent, and sufficient? Who does the bulk of the housekeeping? Does each family member contribute appropriately to housekeeping? If not, what adjustments do you need to make? Who is responsible for yardwork? Is the outside of your home generally well maintained? If not, what adjustments do you need to make? Does your family have reliable transportation? Are the mechanical systems of your home adequately maintained? Are your family members healthy, with adequate medical care, exercise, and nutrition?
Key Points
A good family life depends on skillful household management.
Find the right balance in household management responsibilities.
Give skillful household financial management its due priority.
Assign household purchasing to members with the right skills.
Share and assign housekeeping chores, while recognizing contributors.
Share yardwork, while safely involving children for exercise.
Assign transportation management to the skilled household member.
Pay due attention to maintaining home systems or pay the price.
Focus household management on the health of family members.