Family Expertise: Who Does What in the Home?

Do you ever struggle with who does what in the home? Are the jobs divided up so that the person with the most expertise is in charge of that area? When the chores are divvied up based on family expertise, the home can run more efficiently and effectively. 

Website Help 

When I was starting to get the website up and running, I was lost. I didn’t know how to start. It was months before I realized I needed to ask for help. Thankfully, I had a tech expert I could ask. All it took was me being willing to ask for help. 

On one of our long weekend walks last spring, Dave and I talked about getting this website up and running. I didn’t know where to start. Several years ago, we ran a blog together, and I was an active contributor. I remember logging in and posting articles, uploading photos, and adding keywords to posts. Much time had passed since then, and I had forgotten most of what I’d learned. 

I had logged in to my hosting site regularly, scrolled through the templates, and then logged right back out. Honestly, I didn’t know where to start, and I get overwhelmed with the possibilities.

We kept talking, and I was discussing my frustration with not knowing how to get the website off the ground. Dave smiled and then said something profound.

 “Jen, how important is it for us to have redundant expertise in website building?”  

Suddenly, a light bulb went off in my head. I didn’t need to become an expert in building a website right away. I planned to develop the skill over time. But Dave had those skills available now. He could help me get the site going and then be a resource for me as I had questions.

Dividing up the Tasks in The Home

There are many things I do in the home to keep the household running. Dave has expertise in his job, and I specialize in home management tasks.   We are experts in different things.

Would it be reasonable to expect me to have expertise in his work? Of course not! He has been working in the tech field for nearly 20 years. I can follow along with acronyms for a while, but I am lost when it gets too technical. 

Likewise, it isn’t reasonable for me to expect him to operate the household tasks with the same comfort level.  I can walk into a store (or open up an app) and pick up items for several dinners. I can identify what is well priced and what isn’t.  Grocery shopping is an area where I have the expertise in our family. When Dave took over the household duties during my cancer recovery, there was quite a learning curve for him. 

It may be different in your home. Perhaps you and your spouse both work and have another arrangement for the household tasks. Maybe your partner does the grocery shopping, and you chauffeur the kids to and from their sports practices. Or, perhaps your spouse does the homework duty while you fold the laundry.  

As you evaluate all the household tasks, from cleaning, to laundry, to homework management, consider who has more expertise in each area. If someone has more skill in an arena, it would make sense to take advantage of it. 

Dave is excellent at setting long-range financial visions and putting those ideas into spreadsheets. I’m better at entering the transactions regularly. So, he does the visioning, and I do the logging. 

The Benefit of Redundant Expertise ( Everyone can do a Job)

While some areas in the home benefit from one person specializing, other areas might work better with redundant expertise. For example, everyone in the home should know how to load the dishwasher or vacuum a room. 

In the realm of computer server technology, the essential systems have redundancies. That way, if one server goes down, the user experience isn’t compromised. The backup servers might be a little slower, but at least the system remains up. We experience that at times with our boys’ curriculum provider. Sometimes the online school goes down. Many years ago, it would go down for hours at a time. We would be stuck doing school offline for that day. Nowadays, the server is only down for ten or fifteen minutes. By the time I send an email to their teacher, the school is back online. They have many redundant servers to preserve the student learning experience.

There are critical things that need to get done in our homes that would benefit from redundant expertise. One example is in the area of behavior expectations. If you and your spouse are not on the same page about rules, consequences, and chores, the kids will know it and use it against you. They will figure out who the “easier” parent is and always go to that one for their problems. (If you are curious, that is me). 

This can present problems. For us, this meant that there was one set of standards in the home while Dave was home and then a much more lenient set while he was traveling for business. We didn’t have redundant expertise and consistent expectations in that area, and there would be problems when Dave came home. 

 I didn’t plan on letting the expectations slide. But, I have a hard time keeping a lot of little details in my head. My family knows that if they don’t give me a note or send me a text message about their question, I will forget to do it. I struggled with maintaining the standards on my own. We needed a framework of redundant expertise so that the kids could have consistency. 

How could we establish that in an area where I was weak? After another Saturday morning fight over video game expectations, Dave sat down and wrote it all down in a lengthy document about a year ago. It had standards, consequences, and expectations for our high school aged boys.  

Now, we are all on the same page about the expectations. The written document format is easy to reference when I forget. The kids are benefiting from the consistency in parental expectations. Our days are much more peaceful because we have established redundant expertise in the area of behavior expectations.

Specific Expertise in the Home

There are other things in the home which may not benefit from redundant expertise. How many people need to be responsible for the meal planning? Ideally, one person would manage that task, even if there are several cooks in the family so that just the right amount of food is purchased.  

Is there a person who is better at getting places on time? Then that person should be the family timekeeper and communicate expectations to the family about when to leave home. 

Specific expertise allows each member of the family to work to their strengths. For example, if I have lost anything, I ask my son Dan where it is. He knows where all the things in the house are. I don’t know how he does it, but it sure is helpful.  

Dan is the table-setter for every dinner. He knows that is his job each evening and he is quite good at it. Ken will clean the kitchen and load the dishwasher. The division of chores makes it easy for them to know what to do and easy for me to manage the job getting done.  

Building the Website: Getting Help from my In-House Expert

I ended up sitting down with Dave a few weeks later, and he was able to help me get the framework of my website up and running. He helped me get the menus and the header images in the right place. Once the basics were done, I was able to add posts and learn how to maintain it. I’ve learned a lot over the past several months, and I feel much more comfortable editing and managing the website. 

When I can get help from someone else in the family who is better at a job than I am, it improves the interconnection in the home. As much as I might want, I don’t need to be the expert in everything. I can rely on my loved ones for their unique skills and keep my focus on doing the jobs I have expertise in.