Is the "Mental Load" exaggerated.

And martyrdom

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.

You sound like you're an absolute martyr and yes you have been and still are, a mug.

Sorry.
I hope you manage to change (if you want to)......

Of course the pressure isn't present for Dads, why would it be?

This is you benefitting again from the ancient patriarchal systems put in ace and enforced by society to protect men and disadvantage women.

You don't experience it, you don't see it as a problem. The bar is set so much lower for men by men and society and much higher for women by men and society.

Woman are constantly told on here, on life and since time began that they ar home makers and family raisers and that the "hardworking" husband is entitled to come home to a spotless house, a freshly cooked meal, and freshly bathed children asleep in bed. Anything less is unacceptable. That standard is also expected when a Mom goes back to work.

You aren't coping with the mental load because you just aren't doing it. You've let it slip and everything could be better and despite claiming you enjoy cooking, you're ordering more takeaways.

You're just a typical male. You've got low standards for yourself and other males and high standards for women and the brass balls to actually come on and tell women how they are parenting and running a home wrong and mansplain why, and you can't even do it properly yourself.

It's embarrassing at best.

Did you make sure your family were eating healthily and in a balanced way, not running out of anything and not throwing any food away? Did you keep on top of the social calendar and make sure cards or presents were sent out in advance of people's birthdays (and have a system to remember them)? Half arsing everything is fine for a man, but women try to ensure that things run smoothly and life is pleasant/enjoyable/comfortable for everyone.

I think it is a throwback to me being a SAHM when DC were young so automatically took on the lions share of school/child admin. We've had multiple conversations about the imbalance now I'm working, but I think he honestly feels that cooking meals at weekends and taking DS to weekend hobbies is sharing the load!

You show clearly you don't understand what the mental load actually is.

60% is rarely good enough simply because you felt it was doesn't mean. It is so.

You say you go on amazon and get what they want. That suggests your children are still quite young?

What about the teenager that is into specific Japanese fashion that takes 2-3 months to arrive?

The teenager who wishes tickets for a show/match that goes in sale in September?

The kid that doesnt want anything much as they are going throufh a bad mental stage?

The parent you love dearly that has everything?
The family member that lives abroad so you need to order 2 months before their significant day (tnx Brexit)

None of those can be done on Amazon... most take more than 5 mins too. They require thought and planning.

What about the teenager that is going through their first heartbreak and needs supporting?

The 3 teens whom all has a rugby match in 3 different places on the same day?

The child that's being bullied at school and isn't coping needs additional support?

The dyslexic child that's not being supported at school?

The autistic child who you can't get a EHC plan for?

The child who is suicidal so needs 24 hours watching but you can't get outside support in.

The child with a kidney issue where school keeps calling you as their attendance is low while they are under GOSH for their kidney issue (that was my son btw and school was the one who regular sent him home as he was very sick)

The child whose parent died suddenly who needs more support than before the person was your x and you parted on negative terms.

The parent that starts to suffer from dementia and you need to source support for meanwhile
You pick up the slack.

To me a takeaway a week is not "the occasional" its a regular thing. Also your original post suggested it was more than once a week.

In-between wife coming home from abroad what happened? Did you do a huge clean up before she arrived back? Did she do loads of cleaning while she was home?

While I agree the house doesn't have to be 99% clean and washing doesn't have to be done the same day. To me the house needs to be more than 60% clean and to me the washing needs to be done over the week.

The suggestions above have all been experienced by myself or close friends as we brought our children up btw. I also will bet as your children get older this will all be stuff happening in your children's close circle.

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

Why not? Another one with a super super important job?

I have to agree with you. Where I live (in Europe) people:

• Don't decorate their homes for christmas, much less for halloween. I do it because it genuinely brings me joy but I keep it simple, I don't buy extra decoration each year and don't complain about mental load if I choose to do it. (in Scandinavian countries, creating christmas decorations is an activity that the kids get involved in, not a chore for parents to do)
• Nobody sends christmas cards (do people really keep all of them anyway?)
• people turn up to kids birthday parties with orange juice and a cake and that's it. No present or card. Children don't really need 20 presents in addition to the ones they will get from their family. Keeping in mind that most cheap crap people buy are manufactured by enslaved uyghurs and will end uo in landfill, it might be a good idea to rethink the social conventions that make us buy tons of useless stuff).
• The general consensus is that until kids are old enough to wash themselves without assistance, they don't need to be bathed everyday. 2/3 times a week is fine
• It's also ok to let go of routine during the weekend

This. Sounds like a very half job so no wonder it was easy.

So my husband is out on his Saturday morning walk. When he is gone, I’ve:
fed cat/cleaned out bowl/mat
put on a load of laundry
swept kitchen floor, swept lounge floor, swept laundry room and porch floors
cleaned downstairs loo
taken out compost bin and cleaned it
unloaded dishwasher and put away dirty dishes
gotten in wood load and kindling for tonight’s fire in the woodstove
answered some emails concerning a journal I edit/book I’m writing
checked to make sure we have enough Christmas cards and stamps, because he asked me to do so.
put the bottle of wine in fridge and chicken breasts to defrost for tonight’s meal
Paid some bills
filled the coffee machine with the beans he likes…big kerfuffle over wrong beans in the machine…too high a roast. Had to make tea every night after dinner when I had my coffee because he wouldn’t drink coffee.

Now, I have to make the beds, and then I can shower/dress so I’m ready to go for another Saturday of cleaning his mum’s house out. This may be unkind, but she was a slob and hoarded things, so this is weekend 7 of clearing out her place. I think we have thrown out at least 150-200 bin bags of junk, and there is probably 5x that to go. We are shortly going to have to borrow a friend’s trailer…we could fill it with just broken electrical appliances that she was still paying maintenance insurance on…the last year before she passed I was sorted all that out. There are nice antiques and valuables mixed it with it all, so we have to go through it to sell, etc.

I am retired now, but when I was working full time I still did all this stuff, but instead of clearing his mum’s house, I was trying to make it semi liveable over there for her, and finally just employed a 2x a week cleaner to keep it sanitary because I just didn’t have the hours in the day. She never cleaned…hired it out or didn’t do it.

I was doing housework last night (cleaning out the fridge and mopping floors) when he was looking at a new car for himself. It never ends. I’ve never had a cleaner or any help for my own house, and as we can easily afford it, I’m starting to wonder why not. This thread has really made me think about all this stuff I’ve done for years without question. I cleaned up after my brother and dad and cooked from the age of 10 because my mum was too ill to do so, cleaned up after boyfriends, cleaned up after my husband, cleaned up after his mum, and I also did scut service work when I worked and sorted out other’s mistakes, and I’m slowly realising I’ve been a mug. I still get requests from ex colleagues to do things for them who are so affronted when I say no because I say I’m retired and I’m not paid to do free work for you. I’m just not answering the emails anymore.

I’m a little surprised at how strong a reaction the OP has got here.
I’m female and I operate more like the OP. Kids eat healthily, progress and learn. The house is ok, I don’t care what others think. It’s safe and clean.
I simply don’t spend my life on the ‘mental load’ and I get mildly irritated by friends who cite it often as an excuse to either dump responsibility on me or mess me about with plans. Most tasks people are always citing aren’t time consuming, and the kids can be taught to do a lot independently with mild supervision at a young age - like track clubs, make packed lunches

We are going away for ht so DH has been really busy at work (he's SE). I also work ft.
Within the last 2 weeks I've been to 2 school meetings with DS, taken him to a physio apt, collected him from all after school activities, filled in the form for his flu vaccine, ordered certain books, paid for a school trip and for non uniform day, get his pE kit laundered for required days, I also need to help him do emails for Duke of Edinburgh, and work experience. Not only would DH not even consider any of these things, half of them he doesn't even know about. (He would struggle to even tell you what year DS was in at school )

Most of those tasks are pretty quick, maybe seconds, but it's having all of that info and remembering to do it.(sometimes at 4am)DH works long hours but has the bonus of not thinking about anything outside of work

Is there any evidence he didn't?

What I’m hearing is that your wife previously carried the mental load, you’ve decided to let standards drop instead, now your wife is irritated? Correct assessment? How’s your sex life going? One giant fuck-off pool of resentment? Why don’t you hire a cleaner, or a babysitter so you can clean. Your wife isn’t stupid, she knew letting everything slide was an option, but didn’t pick that from the options.

The in-laws, usually!

Who judges them? Other women more often than most. I agree mothers disproportionately get the blame for other stuff, but I've only ever heard other women snipe about someone's home, or about how many clubs or sports another child does.

OP has done a a great job of phrasing the initial post so there's a pile on about the mental load being a load of hysterical mums stressing over bedtimes. Bravo.

I am a mum who doesn’t find there is any mental load to life admin. I have the kids three days this half term and I haven’t planned anything, other than booked a hair cut. I’m just going to wing it. I know other mums plan every day with activities in and out of home.

I don’t consider mental load the actual doing of things but the planning of things.
Planning and doing the shopping.
Knowing what needs paying.
Organising for trips and school events (ie getting tickets, paying on time).
Booking in the MOT and sorting insurance.
Sorting bdays and Xmas ahead of time so there is no last min worry.
Taking children to health appointments like dentist and eye tests.

What you’ve said is just the day to day running and if the rest is being done behind the scenes it doesn’t matter if it’s messy so long as things are prepared. For example, if you haven’t washed bedding but a child is sick on their bed tonight is there clean spares somewhere? If there is you’ve preempted the problem by anticipating this could happen at any time. That’s mental load.

I agree with this. We're an international couple and I just don't get the obsession with routine here. It seems so counterproductive.
There's a difference between a life with no structure and getting stressed because teeth brushing and book reading have happened the wrong way round or because children are not asleep by 8 when their natural bedtime is 9.
And my pet peeves, like you raise, wanting social events to be orchestrated around said routine rather than just enjoying life and letting kids adapt - they do.

OP, it sounds like you are doing just fine but regardless of whether the kids were happy, I personally would not have been happy with butlins. It's not about getting by, it's about putting your heart into giving your spouse and kids a good experience.
Your spouse is not getting as good an experience as she gave you, and you're prioritising your stress levels over her wellbeing even in important instances (holidays). That's pretty selfish.

In terms of differences in standards, women are judged much more harshly on the state of their homes and their kids welfare. So if she's more stressed than you that will be a big part of why. Any efforts you go to in those areas get a big pat on the back from society as a whole (and from yourself too it seems) as you aren't expected to ultimately responsible for any of it and she is expected to be ultimately responsible for all of it.

60% is not a performance target to shout about. It's C-grade parenting at best. As people tend to over-estimate their own competence at things like this, the reality is probably substantially below 60%.

Nobody can get everything perfect all the time, but we should probably aim to do better than that. If most people went into a workplace performance review and were proud of 60%, they'd find themselves on a performance management pathway.

I'd also suggest working on communication, empathy and attitude/respect towards women, as these seem to be additional areas in which a performance need has emerged.

I personally don't suffer with mental load, I like being the organiser, ensuring things are done in my own ways. If I relied on someone else as organised as they maybe, it would stress me out wondering if they had done it and to my satisfaction. Both my partner and I are happy with this way, some however may not be and mental load is real.

Such as, my brother in law, he suffered with it and it caused many arguments in his relationship because his partner was just so not bothered about what she considered the minimal things in life and a few of them were not actually minimal.

It put a toll on his mental health because when he was not around, things just didn't get done because she simply did not care about the same things. They obviously were not compatible and ended up breaking up, he does not feel the mental load anymore, however, I still see her and she now does because she only has herself to rely on.

My thoughts exactly. Perfect demonstration of not understanding the mental load from another lazy prick.