Family co-responsibility: how to have a co-responsible household?

The co-responsibility in the family It is very necessary these days. With the social changes that have occurred in this century, each time we have a more equal family model in terms of the distribution of roles inside and outside the home. At the same time that the woman has left the labor world, man has entered the domestic world.

This readjustment, however, has its difficulties. Many modern families have, as an important part of their disagreements, an imbalance in the distribution of domestic work.

Family co-responsibility: domestic tasks

One of the reasons why agreements are not reached in the distribution of roles is because domestic tasks are seen as a punishment, and you enter into a battle to escape from it. Some couples who spend their lives measuring and counting the seconds of work that they dedicated to the home and try to collect with interest the work done.


This battle situation generates discomfort in marriage and in the family in general, because we stop feeling like a team to become rivals and especially judges who are able to determine the value of the work of others.

How to end this attitude of punishment?

Only assuming that housework is not a punishment: although sometimes it can be uncomfortable and ungrateful. We must think that we are taking care of OUR home and we are doing it for the people we most love. Only by internalizing this idea can we accept that although it is not the most glamorous work, it is the one we must do with more love, because the people we love the most benefit.

The participation of children in family co-responsibility

In the different studies on co-responsibility in family it is assumed that the distribution of roles occurs only between husband and wife, however, it is important to understand that true co-responsibility occurs when ALL family members are able to be involved in the performance of the tasks necessary to maintain the home.


As children grow up it is essential to recognize that they have much to contribute to family life. These assignments and tasks, in addition to relieving the burden of domestic tasks to parents, teach them to think about others, to be independent, and train them for life.

As children grow older, they must also increase the sense of responsibility they should have with their family and home. They need to feel grateful for what they have received, and should understand that one way to give back to parents the effort they have made to educate them, is to gradually assume more responsibilities in their personal expenses, in the care and cleaning of your things and your space.

We do not do our children any good when we try to take away responsibilities in the family, rather we are depriving them of learning that will serve them in the future to be independent and to form their own family.


Stewardship is a matter of love

The theme of family co-responsibility will be resolved when we understand that, like everything in the family, it is a matter of love. If we love each other enough, we will be able to think about the tasks we do at home, like small samples of love we make for others.

It will not then be a matter of how many diapers one changed, nor how many dishes did the other wash; but we can make a fair division of labor, in which we think of the other: their tastes, their contributions and their time; and in which we all feel like members of a team in which we all collaborate, because we love each other.

María Verónica Degwitz. Master of Science in Family Sciences and author of the blog In the living room of my house.

Video: The real effects of single-parent households | Stephanie Gonzalez | TEDxCarverMilitaryAcademy


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