Is the "Mental Load" exaggerated.

This is a really good way of describing it.

I dropped by a school mum’s house one day and she was raging that she’d had a new cleaner in (they both work busy jobs and have three kids), and ‘look at how filthy the place is’. The place looked IMMACULATE to me. Everyone has different standards and tick boxes. Your way of cleaning sounds fine to me, but some of my friends or even my dh would be seeing red. Ye might need to get figuring this out together somehow

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4852879-aibu-to-hate-the-term-mental-load?page=1

Thought I was getting a sense of deja vu...

Plenty of additional insight here that stretched to 40 pages. Hold onto your hat OP - it's gonna be a bumpy ride and a long night.....

Out of every time I've ever read a post by a man on Mumsnet telling women how they are doing it wrong this is the most clueless.

I agree that the bar is subterranean for men and they’ll be praised to high heaven for taking their own child to the park and buying them a lolly, and that’s wrong. Society needs to expect more from men.

I really disagree about the conditioning as a woman to uphold these standards and constantly fear being judged lest you don’t Dettol the bog twice a day and forgot your MIL’a favourite brand of biscuits. I’ve literally never felt anything even close to this. I’m a woman, just to make that totally clear. But I find on MN this idea of being conditioned your whole life to people please and run around after everyone and cultivate some Stepford-type home is really overstated. I really couldn’t give a fuck if my neighbour was desperate for a piss and saw some skid marks or crumbs on my carpet.

I leave washing up in the sink overnight, don’t change my bedsheets weekly, don’t wear makeup or look stereotypically feminine, have absolutely no interest in or intention of managing my partner’s relationships with his family, and neither will I be caring for my parents in old age (I’ve told them this). I choose to prioritise myself. I’m not some kind of freak or wizard with special powers to avoid social conditioning, I just…don’t care. Sure, some people might have certain expectations of how women should behave and conduct their lives but does nobody stop and think “hang on, what’s more important right now, the 000.1% chance that Bill from number 42 might knock on the door about to piss himself, or the fact that I’m stressed and knackered and want to sit down and watch eastenders in my trackies rather than scrub the toilet with a toothbrush?”

Acceptable to whom?

My mental load isn't about how things get done. It's because I'm the ONLY one who does them.

I had a migraine this morning. Still had to get up because no way DH would think to get up in time to get DS up for an appointment (he takes him to) and think to put the washing on. He hasn't done the paltry two housework jobs he has, because he hasn't even thought about it. Or read the school newsletter for things we need to know/attend. And remind him to ask work for that time off. And prompt him to check it's been approved. I'm also arranging DD's orthodontist treatment. DH will take her if I ask, but I'm arranging appointments etc and now looking to the future to save for the expensive treatment she'll need. I've also bought all Xmas gifts. DH missed his DF's birthday because I refuse to prompt him.

I also discovered DH was 'managing' our finances by ignoring them & we were going nowhere. I took over & paid out house off in 8 years. We could afford it, but he wasn't interested in paying attention to it.

He's fully capable when it's something that he's interested in (like his hobby). So it's not competence, but care.

I could go on, but the point is, it's exhausting having to make sure everything gets done because it's not a mental priority to my husband.

OK you know what the kids want for Christmas and won't fret now because you'll buy it nearer the time. Do your children each get one gift only? No stockings, other smaller presents, a present from a distant relative who sends money and asks you to buy (wrap and label) something from them? Who else do your family give presents to? Relatives, school friends, neighbours, teachers etc

Perhaps you are coping better with the 'mental load' because you are able to rationalise that you can forget about Christmas until December. I think many women/mums are running a constant checklist in our heads because we are worried things will get forgotten otherwise

What it boils down to for me is that every day/week we have a number of shortcuts/get out of jail free cards - things like a takeaway, skipping teethbrushing, letting the housework slide a bit. Not brilliant but ok sometimes. If one partner uses all these cards, the other is left without any. And therefore has to do the food shop and make sure the kids don’t get scurvy, raise voices to get teeth done, run the hoover round/do dishes before the next week starts or a visitor arrives. And it’s shit if you find your so-called partner routinely uses all the cards.

I used to buy bits for my kids for months before Christmas. Still do actually and they're grown ups! I used to pick up on little things they said - I didn't really ever ask them to make lists, because I didn't need them to! - and put so much thought and effort into buying them presents they didn't realise they wanted until they got them!

dH insisted on wrapping them. His were wrapped as a child, mine weren't. Guess who wrapped them all on Christmas Eve. I only kept on doing it because it added to the kids' excitement.

You are missing the whole point. But you can, because your wife probably isn't.

I have a (working outside the home) friend who does ALL the child related stuff. I asked what her husband did and she said he got the bills paid. There is no comparison!

It's not easy for me - I find it all incredibly difficult. I imagine he finds it easy because he doesn't have ADHD and has a lower (but adequate) standard for house and family related tasks.

If we lowered our standards/ didn't have ADHD I'm sure we'd find it a lot easier too. Surely that's preferable to being miserable and making the kids miserable as a result.

What's invalidating and upsetting is you calling what he does (which sounds better than my best efforts at balancing home and work life) a "very much inadequate" job.

Do you not bother vaccinating your kids then? Taking them to the dentist? Do they not have birthday parties? Or car seats? Or holiday / after school clubs - maybe they just sit at home and amuse themselves while you’re working? I guess you don’t budget or do any financial planning? Not bothered to check whether your DC need glasses, or new shoes? Are you pretty chill about whether your car has a valid MOT?

It all needs doing - it needs remembering and planning and executing. Sure it’s not rocket science but it takes up endless annoying little bits of time all over the place, and it really adds up if you’re the only one who can be arsed remembering to do any of it, and you’re also working full time and commuting and keeping on top of the packed lunches and laundry and other automatic day to day stuff.

But maybe your partner does all this and that’s why it seems to you like pointless filler. Vaccinations, shmaccinations!

Yep. This!

Is this a wind up or are you for real? You have no idea, clearly aren”t shouldering the load, feeling smug and they having the audacity to question if there is a mental load.

Are you the same kind of man that things being kicked in the nuts is comparable to childbirth? Your wife is still carrying the load and she knows it. You don’t because you never did. Crack a book.

The reason you don’t worry about the mental load is because your wife is carrying it.

There's a huge difference between getting everything done and getting everything done well. I don't think you'd be much use as the employee who always does the former!

The entire time we have been married, I don’t think DH has cleaned the loo once, or replaced toilet roll, or bought stamps, or bought cleaning supplies, or dusted a piece of furniture. I send all the Christmas cards. It does not enter his head to do anything like this…he only notices it when what is needed is absent, or if he cannot find something straight away. He isn’t bothered if the house is dirty, and it takes a lot of effort from me to stop him scattering things everywhere. I declutter constantly, clean everyday, and chuck things, but this does not occur to him. Cupboard doors are opened and not shut etc. I love him but yeah, it gets on my nerves sometimes. I’m made for more in life than making sure there is enough loo roll! 😩And now I am staring at his trainers chucked in the middle of the floor. We have a boot box for these that I paid for…crickey.

punishment for her complaining about his lax attitude and children missing things because he relaxed the standards?

What I find unpleasant is that the OP is having a dig at his wife. Implying that being in charge of the family is easy peasy. It was her fault for being stressed because her standards were too high. Let it slide and life is so much more pleasant for all. Chill.

No acknowledging the very real double standards that exist. I have friends whose husbands come home from work and criticise them for not getting enough done. Despite having young families, being responsible for running the house, dinners, homework, school runs et etc

Many women would be slated by their spouses for letting things go because their husbands would be pissed if they are ‘working hard all day’, then they expect their wives to be working equally or more hard.

I carry about 90% of mental load in our home, but (unlike your examples):

• the bins go out the morning of bin day, when I remember to remind my husband

I have many more examples of the above, but just because I don't do stuff well in advance of it needing to be done doesn't mean I don't carry the mental load for remembering the stuff and doing it/ arranging for it to be done. The two things aren't mutually exclusive.

OP's issue isn't one of mental load but his wife's dislike of his way of getting those tasks done. The additional mental load that she carries is only the difference between the standard in his way of doing things and hers.

The last paragraph pretty much nails it.

Omg yes it's this. Never ending

Interesting. I think it’s unfair to say the mental load is imaginary. Of course it would be less stressful if we had less pressure. But as you said yourself, men are super-fathers when they do the bare minimum. Women don’t have that luxury - we are worried about the neighbours popping round to use the loo because we’ve been conditioned to run everything to the highest of standards or be judged forevermore. So yes I think you’re right that there’s a sexism element to it. But instead of trying to convince your wife that she should just not feel the pressure and let things slip, why don’t you show appreciation for all she does, you said yourself she does it better! A lot of the pressure involved with the mental load could be alleviated if she knows she’s appreciated for everything she does. Even if you think 100% is unnecessary when you got by just fine on 60%.