It’s time for the baby’s bath and the house is upside down. You have to do a thousand things and your partner has told you that he takes care of the bathtub moment while you make dinner. It sounds good to you, so you get to work … but at a time when you go to the bathroom to see how everything is going, you find that it is already taking it out, but you notice some fluff peeking out from the fold of its small neck. You silently grumble and say, “Let me finish it ,” as you settle in to bathe him again. If this scene sounds familiar to you, you may be one of those mothers who find it difficult to delegate, and who in the long run, can be overcome by the inequality in the distribution of tasks.
The division of tasks, does it really exist?
I think this is one of the most difficult points that precedes “delegating.” Before, women stayed at home and men went to work, but it turns out that things have changed and now women also work outside. In an ideal scenario, housework and childcare should be shared 50/50 , but reality indicates that we are nowhere near that figure. That is why the starting point is important: it is vital to agree on the division of tasks, in such a way that both parties must agree to that agreement.
For me this point is essential, because I think that having to tell your partner everything to do is exhausting (for both of you, obviously) . The idea of delegating is to remove part of the “mental load” that mothers have, but if we only remove the execution and not the planning, we are not doing the task completely.
“It’s that nobody does things like me”
I could bet we’ve all thought about it at one time or another. And you may be right in a way, because no one is going to do things the same as you: the other person will do it differently . A little better or a little worse, but different and just as valid. To delegate with conviction, it is necessary to act as you would in a company: trusting it, accepting that a person can take a different path from yours, that little by little they will perfect the technique and that even the result may surprise you.
The purpose of delegating is to share the daily workload more equitably, and to alleviate that exhaustion and that constant feeling that we do not get everything. Always bear in mind that to take care, we must take care of ourselves and keep ourselves well physically and mentally .
What can I do if it is difficult for me to delegate tasks to my partner?
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Dialogue : This should be the main tool of any matter between couples. It is a topic, but getting it can be really complicated, especially in issues that have to do with housework and childcare. I recommend doing it in a relaxed space, better outside the home (taking a walk or having a coffee), without children and avoiding relapse into reproaches about what each one does and does not do . It is important to make the other see that we are overloaded, and that we need to rearrange certain things in order to feel better, but with tact.
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Reflect on your way of saying things : many times it is easier to have a relaxed conversation if we have previously thought about the message and the way we want to convey it. That’s why it’s always good to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and ask yourself how you would want them to say these kinds of things to you.
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Be a little more permissive : over time I have learned to accept that not everything has to be perfect (by the way, perfect in my eyes, which does not imply that it is reality), less with two girls and without a family to support us . Nor is it necessary to tell the other person all the time, because in the end they will think that everything is wrong and that is precisely the shortest way to demotivate them.
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Learn to disconnect : when you do not delegate your brain ends up making a mental map of every little thing that must be done at home to make it work, and if you are not there, you will continue to think exactly the same and send messages by WhatsApp to your partner indicating how when and where. That is why a good exercise is to find time for yourself, give the instructions that are absolutely necessary, and disconnect completely. If your partner goes out to the park with the children and does not bring wipes, or has not bought the tomatoes that were needed, or whatever, surely he will find a solution and in the end nothing will happen .
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Trust : many women (here I do speak of a particular gender because I have never heard a man say this in my life), we can come to think that if we are not, or at least you are controlling everything, the machinery is going to Come down and the house will self-destruct in no time. From my own experience I can say that it is not like that, that they can do everything perfectly and that in the face of many small problems of the day to day, they are more practical than we are . It is vital to trust the other person so that they feel capable of taking on tasks that they have never faced before.
A final note : at home, children learn by example, so it is vital that they see that at home there is co-responsibility so that they assume it as something normal. On the contrary, if what they witness day after day that mom (or dad) is in charge of everything, it is what they will normalize and what they will have in their head for the rest of their lives.
In Babies and More | Do you suffer from burnout syndrome? Mothers who can’t take it anymore
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