My client had been bemoaning the fact she’d no time for herself. As a coach who helps women find better fairness, balance and joy in their lives, I hear this often.

She’d rattled off her day, from getting the kids up and organised for school, coming back to clear up, put on the washing and prep dinner.

Then she’d start work and before she knows it, it’s collection time and she hasn’t had space to go for her run.

Despite modern families often having two working parents, there is still a hangover from the patriarchal days where a house miraculously gets cleaned by little fairies when no one is looking.

Problem is, those fairies have a name, and it’s usually “mum”. The inequity of the family workload is affecting women’s mental health and the quality of their relationships.

What if my client used her time more wisely: going for her run after the drop-off and then making a game of cleaning up when the boys returned from school? They’d soon learn that fairies are family members.

This invisible workload – the physical responsibility, along with managing it all mentally – was traditionally unpaid, unrecognised and unrewarded.

So how can we now turn the fairy work into family work? How do we make housework a team sport rather than the perennial prerogative of one person?

We can make the invisible work visible, have constructive conversations rather than destructive conflict and empower everyone rather than control everything.

Making the invisible work visible

The clue is in the name: house“work”. It is often laborious, repetitive, thankless, but utterly urgent and necessary work. Without it, family life stalls.

But it has to be seen to be believed. While men are certainly stepping up in the home, when the cognitive responsibility is separated from the practical delivery, the imbalance is stark.

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Research by the Fair Play Institute shows women are carrying almost all the mental responsibility, leading to them being overwhelmed.

Each family will look different, but making a clear (and long) list of everything that needs done, every day, starts the process of visibility so there is a foundation for allocation.

Screaming “I need help” into the blank faces of partners and kids isn’t going to be as effective as “this is exactly what needs to happen for dinner to arrive at the table – here’s your part”.

Paid work and education is still deemed more valuable than unpaid work, yet neither can be done without it.

Clean sheets, cups and plates, a system for dirty clothes to be washed, dried and sorted is required.

The house needs to be clean and tidy, with 1,000 jobs being done in the background so when everyone gets home, there is warmth, clean sports gear for matches, food in the fridge, lightbulbs replaced, TV licence paid, sofa decluttered of cups, wrappers and charger cables, body wash in the shower and clean towels.

Kids are happy because communications from 637 WhatsApp groups and emails for trips have been dealt with, prescriptions collected, and a present waiting and wrapped for the child’s friend’s birthday party this weekend.

It might not be paid, but it’s priceless work to keep the family running. Making it visible means everyone understands how the family machine runs and their part in it.

“Equality begins in the home,” says Nicole Murphy, who created Magneplan, a system to make invisible work visible in homes.

“Nobody is stepping up to take our place – why would they? – so women need a new way of operating a modern home that is more equitable and democratic for all.”

Conversations over conflict

“Lunch?”

This was the text a client’s husband sent her as they both worked from home in separate rooms.

I thought he was asking her what she wanted. “No,” she replied. “He was asking me when lunch was.”

Over the years, so many meals had just magically appeared that he assumed it would again.

Determined to make it a team effort, rather than jump into immediate conflict, she’d been practising small, regular conversations over one-way rants.

Instead of getting annoyed, she simply replied: “Yes please.”

After some silence, she heard the percussion of fridge doors and plates downstairs.

Over lunch chat, she suggested that now they both worked from home two days, they took a day each to make lunch.

She then asked that he surprise her with lunch on his day as the greatest gift would be her not having to think about it.

This led to a surprising conversation because he’d no idea the drain of constantly thinking what to provide was an issue.

As a conversation, it became a discussion, not a directive. Taking it further, they included their daughter.

On a Sunday evening before my client does the online food shop, her husband and teenager plan the week’s meals together, then hand her the list for the full shop with all the extras.

Several clients do this, their kids now growing up realising that meals have to be conceived of, thought about, planned, ingredients listed, bought, put away and then made.

Children also feel they have a say in the family life, which leads to the third tactic: empowering everyone.

Empower not disempower

Every member of a team has a role which will change with age and capacity. It’s easy to disempower others by taking on too much because we confuse caring with carrying everything.

However, empowering children and partners to take responsibility for making a house and family a home benefits everyone.

The Fair Play Institute even have a card game designed to make visible the responsibility, then giving everyone agency in taking responsibly for their share.

Letting someone else hoover badly is still better for you than them not doing it at all

There also has to be a distinction between sanity versus standards. Letting someone else hoover badly is still better for you than them not doing it at all.

Delegate the chores you have less interest in, empowering others to take responsibility, and then aim for praise over perfection.

They may never do it as well as you, but they’ll never do it again if they’re blamed and shamed for not doing it perfectly.

Pick your battles and go for potential over perfection. Kids (and partners) will grow into their competency for chores.

They’ll get much better with praise and guidance. If they get scolded for not using the nozzle extension on the skirting boards when asked to hoover the hall, they’re not going to be too enthused to do it next week. It’s a gradual graduation to “good enough”.

In making housework teamwork, you may need to accept no one is going to jump to it willingly. So if you need to bribe, pay or treat afterwards, so be it.

It could be an hour or two cleaning together on a Saturday followed by a movie and treats.

The key is to instil knowledge and then practise, developing a culture of collective awareness and fairly shared responsibility (whatever that looks like at different stages) so that everyone benefits from a family that feels like a team.

Alana Kirk is The Midlife Coach and author of Midlife, Redefined: Better, Bolder. Brighter. See themidlifecoach.org