Sharing the load between siblings

In most families, care work lands disproportionately on one person — usually whoever lives nearest, and usually a daughter. It happens gradually, through a series of individually reasonable decisions, and it is remarkably hard to undo once established.

Information is the bottleneck

The main reason the load does not shift is that only one person knows what is going on. Everything routes through them because they are the only one who could answer the question. Offers of help turn into requests for a briefing, which is more work, so the offers dry up.

Make the picture shared before you divide the tasks

Redistribution works far better when everyone can see the same information without asking. At that point a sibling three hours away can take responsibility for something whole — repeat prescriptions, or all hospital appointments — rather than helping out on request.

Divide by category, not by occasion

• One person owns medication and prescriptions.
• One person owns appointments and transport.
• One person owns finances and admin.
• Everyone rotates visits, on a rota written down somewhere.

Say what the arrangement costs

Resentment in caring families rarely comes from the work itself. It comes from the work being invisible. Naming it out loud — hours, weekends, annual leave spent on appointments — is usually the conversation that shifts things, and it is far easier to have with a shared record than from memory.