Is the "Mental Load" exaggerated.

This brings in mind the following quote up thread

Literally every other thread! Women are telling women they are too much or not enough constantly!
Have you ever been on Mumsnet before? It’s BUILT on judgement.

YANU. 2 full time working parents and tired but no double standards for mum or dad. Childless people have chores too. You choose your poison.

If one parent chooses higher standards for joint showhome, showkids, showlife, etc, other partner either supports or renegotiate terms. Or make peace with the higher chore "load".

I don't even understand wth this fabled 'mental load' is. Is it basic everyday shit, booking tickets, calling the dentist, paying bills, xmas presents, booking travel, online shopping for things? Clacking keyboards, in other words? Ha, if that's so, I do it every day, for myself too, it's called 'life' in my house. Takes almost no time and you have to be brain dead to call it difficult.

I'm a single parent, I work, earn money, my house is tidy, never any piles of crap just lying around. Because we put stuff in its place straight after use. DD cleans her own room, I do the rest. I do not allow her to live in a hovel, her room's tidy. I cook from scratch, parent and work. Work is by far most difficult, home stuff isn't, it's just boring. I find the whining annoying, it's just basic housework stuff, not rocket science, what's so complicated.

If I had a £1 for every man who told me was a great baker, chef, Dad etc whilst being subpar I’d be a much wealthier woman.

If all those men could just realise I smile and nod rather than pull them up on their silliness, the world would be a better place.

I’m sure some of those men think I was impressed as well!

This.
Add in:
Noticing when DC are growing out of clothes, planning a trip to shops to buy more, or getting online and buying more.
Arranging for passing on clothes that are too small, either to friends/relatives or taking to charity shop.
Noticing when coat or PE kit has gone missing, tracking it down.
Remembering to book MOT for car.
Reading email from house insurance company, remembering to renew, or compare prices.
Knowing about your DC friends - have they fallen out with best friend? Does this happen often? Do they have a few best friends? Is there an issue? Are they lonely? Are they being bullied? Are they a bully?
Noticing if the carpet needs a proper clean, not just vacuuming, sourcing this if you don't own a wet cleaner.
Knowing about children's food preferences and intolerances, health issues, minor illnesses, so when the GP asks you about their history you know the answers.

And dozens of other little things that you have to know about, remember, hold in mind - usually on an annual cycle.

Those aren't all happening to the same family at the same time. Trying to dress up a load of different family situations as normal mental load that one family unit has to handle is disingenuous.

So you basically had no standards but didn't feel the pressure of the mental load? Yeah, that's why you didn't!

I work with several women and one man all with primary achool aged children. I asked them when their kids broke up - all the women knew but the man didn’t. He didn’t have to as he didn’t have to plan ahead for childcare or holiday clubs or activities - he left that to his wife.

on School WhatsApp groups the vast majority of parents are women.

Naturally, being a man, he inevitably has masses of (almost certainly misplaced) "self esteem" aka arrogance, certainty that all he does is right and good, and knows that his opinions should be voiced and attended to - that he knows and IS best.

That aside, he doesn't sound like a particularly bad example of what is such a low standard.

Yet uses it to goad people, hmmm

This. I simply…don’t do presents and cards for anyone. Problem solved. And as I said in my previous post so what if “society” thinks women should have everything spotless and hyper organised (that isn’t an expectation I’ve ever encountered though). Just because some societal expectation exists doesn’t mean you have to acknowledge it or acquiesce to it.

OP sounds like he's aiming quite far below perfect.

Of course you didn't find the mental load hard when you did a lazy, relaxed, half hearted job with it and probably wasted thousands of the household budget.

They thought you were super dad for just being a parent 🤣 Also I can’t imagine that your wife was just earning more money but even more stressed as she was still having to pick up after you. Much like when my husband has been ‘cleaning’ the bathroom for the last 6 months but now we need to regrout because of mould. Had he kept to higher cleaning standards we wouldn’t need to do this.

The stuff I find hardest are the unexpected things. The letters that come home - please bring in a certain fruit, a bottle, please wear a certain colour top that you inevitably don’t have, so you need to go shopping. Please wear a costume.

Children getting sick, you need to be up all night, rearrange work, call the school, try and get a doctor’s appt, get the prescription, take temperature, get someone to pick up other kids.

Kids get bullied out of nowhere or are struggling with school work so you need to see the teacher. Teacher shrugs shoulder so you want to see the head. Etc, etc.

Also with older kids, who sweat more etc, you do need to wash to clothes a lot more, if you’re currently getting more than one day’s wear out of some school uniform.

I’m delighted OP didn’t find it all hard; some people do. Even your own wife did and you’re incredulous. A bit of thinking about other people and a smidge of self-awareness goes a long way.

OP is a super dad with extraordinary mental capacity.

You should apply that big brain to something more taxing.

Am I being unreasonable to think that much of the stress of the “mental load” comes from pressures we put on ourselves, and that with the right mindset, it doesn’t have to be anywhere near as overwhelming?

Yes YABU. Without wanting to be goady, just honest, from my experience in the context of family life, most of the "mental load" that women talk about comes from having to remember 100s of exhausting but necessary tiny little things and forward planning that men never notice and don't care about unless they aren't done. Could give a thousand examples but I'm sure others have already.

I agree with what previous posters have said, it's not about housework etc, that's just something that gets done I wouldn't put it under mental load.
Mental load is things that need to be planned and thought about, forms filled in etc. This increases significantly with children. This half term for example we have already had : yellow day, parents evening for both, meeting about residential, harvest festival donations request for both, Christmas box donation request for both, school photos, flu jab consent forms for both, school disco. Also managed to source a new NHS dentist as we haven't had one for a time so forms for all of us to complete there.
This is the stuff for me that I feel is mental load, sometimes it is constant emails from the school, making sure to keep on top of dates and remembering what to take in etc. I even set alarms for booking parents evening as obvs only certain times suit so need to book them in early.
I am glad it is half term as it's a breather from all these emails and also thinking about lunch boxes, school uniform etc.

People like to say they are busy. It's a tricky topic because for some of us, organising is easier than it is for others. I remember people being supposedly amazed by a kids party we had. Arrange venue with child, arrange cake with child, arrange decorations with child, agree party list with child, design invitations with child, pick gift bags and toys with child... when the entire thing was turned into a child activity, it was just a nice way of occupying him over a few Saturday mornings, with the added bonus that the party was sorted. It wasn't my mental load, it wasn't even a chore, and it didn't need to be done as an alternative to working.

Homework is written into the weekly routine. Next dentist appointment gets booked when we are there, emails about doctor appointments or club and camp bookings get done during his clubs. Buying clothes or shoes isn't that often etc. Admittedly DH does a bunch of stuff too, but I genuinely get confused about why some find it stressful. I get hundreds of messages at work every day, the level of admin for the household pales into nothing in comparison.

Again - well done. You’re lucky you get flexible hours. Aren’t you just being a normal helpful person rather than helping? Anyway, thanks for letting us all know.

You do you, babe. I see you didn’t address my other post - what do you want to achieve here? I’m not sure if the is a brag or you explaining to women that they are making too much of a big deal of the work that goes into running a household to try and be helpful. Or do you just get a kick out of goading people to post multiple messages here.

If people feel they are carrying extra mental load, why do you need to diminish how they feel? You’ve found a way to make your life, and that of your family’s, work. You could just leave it there and not have started this at all.

However you slice it, your OP was criticism of your wife. Putting her down and lauding your relaxed ‘let it slide’ approach. Indirectly you’re also denigrating most women who do carry the majority of a households’ mental load (which is a catch all phrase that doesn’t wholly reflect what’s happening) in having to think about and act on the minutiae of a family. That’s a shitty thing to do IMO.

I'm sorry, I don't really understand your post OP.

Cooking, cleaning, washing, bath-times, bedtimes for the kids - none of those are the 'mental load'. They're just things that have to be done on a day-to-day basis. Basic household labour, if you like.

Why were you slipping with these? Did you not help with them before your wife got the promotion? Did you literally just sit there and say 'Oh, my big important man-job means I can't put the kids to bed' until there was no other option? You should have already been doing your fair share of these so keeping them going to a good standard shouldn't really have been a big challenge.

The 'mental load' imo relates more to the organising stuff - making sure school and nursery bags are packed, kids have the right kit for the right days, activities are booked, meals are planned and shopping ordered so everyone is eating healthily, lunch box stuff is sorted, parties are rsvp'd to and playdates organised, presents are bought and wrapped, the kids' school schedule is sorted, time off is booked for the nativity plan....and so on, and so on. It's about thinking ahead so everything runs according to plan. And everyone isn't just surviving, they're also thriving.

Child-free so not going to comment on the goady OP or what it's like for parents but one thing that always annoys me is

DH works long hours but has the bonus of not thinking about anything outside of work

the attitude that work is somehow easy street and doesn't come with a huge mental load of its own - my job certainly does and I'm lucky enough to be in a field which is my actual passion. I've seen a lot of posts on here implying that people in full-time jobs are essentially swanning out of the house for a lovely relaxing break all day. Not sure what jobs you've ever had but I've never experienced that!

And the one thing that most mystifies me is the emphasis on remembering birthdays. Particularly your husband's family's birthdays. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT. Why would you start. Why would you ever consider that something on your plate. "If I didn't then he wouldn't" well they're his family so that's OK!