How to share the responsibility between siblings
The most common split between siblings is no split at all: one of you starts doing things, and that's how it stays. Here's a way to change that without a big family meeting, built on a list everyone can see and a duty week that takes turns.
Start with the list, not the conversation
A conversation that starts with who does too little usually ends with everyone defending themselves. Start instead by writing down everything that needs doing in an ordinary month: shopping, laundry, bins, lifts to appointments, bills, calls with home care, visits. Send the list to your siblings and ask if anything's missing. Now you're talking about a document, not about each other.
Separate the regular from the urgent
Regular tasks come every week and can be planned: shopping on Wednesdays, laundry on Sundays, the prescription to collect. Urgent tasks are the ones that crop up: a call from home care, a door that won't close, a trip to the out-of-hours doctor. Regular tasks should be shared out by name. Urgent ones should go to whoever has the duty week — otherwise they always land on whoever lives closest.
Introduce a duty week
A duty week means one sibling is responsible for whatever comes up that week, and the role takes turns in a fixed order. Whoever has the week takes the calls, follows up the unexpected and passes the news on. The others can breathe. If there are three of you, each has one week in three, and everyone knows in advance when it's their turn.
Let distance count as a task
Whoever lives far away can rarely take the urgent calls, but they can take everything that's done by phone or online: applications to the council, appeals against decisions, appointments to book, bills, insurance, dealing with the pharmacy. These are real hours, and they should be on the list with a name against them — otherwise they never feel like part of the effort.
Agree on how you pass messages on
Three group chats are worse than none. Choose one place everyone writes in, and keep an overview that counts ahead of the chat: who has the week, which appointments are coming, which regular tasks are with whom, and which phone numbers are the right ones. The chat is for talking. The overview is for facts, and it's the only one that should be relied on.
Do a short review once a month
Set aside a quarter of an hour once a month for three questions: has anything changed, is anyone carrying too much, and should we ask the council for more help. A fixed fifteen minutes a month costs little, and it stops things piling up into a conversation nobody can face.
Questions and answers
How do we share the responsibility when we live in different cities?
Split the tasks into two piles: what has to be done in person where your parent lives, and what can be done from anywhere. Whoever lives nearby takes the first pile, and in return gets less of the paperwork, the applications and the phone calls. The duty week should still rotate for anything that doesn't need someone there in person.
What is a duty week?
One sibling is responsible for the unexpected for one week at a time, and the role rotates in a fixed order. It means urgent tasks don't always fall to the same person.
We tried a shared calendar before and it died out. What do we do differently?
A calendar shows when something happens, but not who is responsible. Add the duty week and a short list of regular tasks with names against them. Those two things are what keep an overview in use after three weeks.
What if one sibling refuses to help?
Then you share what's left between those who do turn up, and ask the council or care services for more help. Keep the one who doesn't help copied in on the overview all the same. Some start taking on small tasks once they can see exactly what's being left undone.
Should we count hours?
No — that usually becomes a new argument. Pay attention instead to whether someone says it's too much. Then you move tasks, whatever a list of hours might say.
Make your duty week
Appointments, regular tasks, the duty week and the phone numbers in one text you can paste into the family chat. Free, no account.
Make your overviewOther things we've made
Also for families keeping the everyday coordinated between them.
Also for families keeping the everyday coordinated between them.
Also for families keeping the everyday coordinated between them.
Also in Norwegian, made by the same people.