To think that “mental load” is just another way to moan about normal adult life?

Yes. This!

I worked in a very stressful demanding job three days a week post mat leave. STBXH worked over full time hours but by choice - working on projects he had chosen because he fancied it, saying they would make money/more money in the future. (they never did, I was always the main earner and provided financial stability).

At the end of a week he once said to me ‘why are you so tired, you have had two days off’ and I agreed and said I didn’t know. It was only when I read more about the mental load and emotional labour that I realised why I was so tired. He worked the hours of his choosing then would ‘help’ with other stuff. Meanwhile I held everything together. All the planning, cleaning etc. I was always the one managing my own emotions in the face of him and the kids dysregulating and stripping. he’d do some cooking and washing up and laundry. He’d make tons of mess. Never cleaned unless asked.

When he dropped to two days a week I did the same. I left him to do the mental load and the bulk of domestic stuff. Can’t rely on him to do the emotional labour he is too volatile. I just ‘helped’ with domestic stuff…and oh my god the difference in my stress levels. I finally had headspace to figure out what I wanted to do. What I like. I now volunteer and have taken up a hobby.

I do DIY tasks even if the daily grind still needs doing - which is what he used to do - which is far more stimulating than the constant and endless daily grind activities. Far more satisfying.

I can honestly say that working, helping out with the domestic stuff and doing jobs like mowing the lawn, pressure washing the patio etc is far far more enjoyable and far less stressful. Don’t be fooled by the ‘but he does the DIY’ trope. That is not equivalent to the endless monotony of domestic chores.

Of course he hates doing domestic chores so has taken on more work now so I am forced back into domestic servitude. Hence STBX. Well that and he’s verbally abusive.

But, I can tell you 100 that ‘helping with household chores and child care’ even if you spend the same amount of time working is much less draining and that doing the ‘big jobs’ like DIY and gardening are harder physically but much more rewarding - more to show for it and the impact lasts longer, you get more acknowledgment and it’s less mind numbing and soul destroying with the ‘I’ve just washed up and suddenly there are more pots on the side’ feeling.

@Lencten I totally agree, depends on the child. Two of mine are ND and while they are very good considering their diagnosis, they are harder work than other kids and early childhood was significantly more difficult. Then there were all the extra appointments not to mention constant stress. Now as teens and pre teens now life is fairly easy thankfully but for many people the teen years are extremely difficult.

This. 💯

Then sort it out. It strikes me as many woman just prefer moaning about it.

And a lot of it is the ridiculous anyway e.g whinging about having to buy cards and presents for his family. Why on earth do it? I couldn't care less whether or not my husband sends his family presents. Not my problem.

I am responsible for working and earning enough money to keep a roof over the heads of 4 adults and pay nearly all the bills (adult dc take care of a couple of the bills. I also do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, gardening, house renovation (dc do help out with the house stuff) and deal with all the legal stuff (of which there is plenty of companies who want money out of you for BS reasons and you have to fight them in court.
Ombudsmen are useless if companies just ignore their findings

2 adult children with SEN’s where they might be capable of going to work and they do help out financially and physically. But sometimes I have to have input into their lives to guide them so I feel I always need to have some input into what they are doing. The other has agoraphobia and we all think dementia but a diagnosis would involve them leaving the house. So I still have to make sure everything is in the house for all circumstances

Add to that I have ADHD that doesn’t go away even if I take the highest dosage of meds

How many people have all that on their plate

Fully braced!

Be careful, you'll get told off for saying that

I use to make my DH, appointment dr,dentist and hair cut! Then put a reminder on calendar.
Now I make him make them himself and he still tells me and expects me to put in my phone and remind him!! I told him he has his own phone and can remind himself!
The adult children are the same, it’s like I’ve told my Mum so I can just not bother to remember.

Oh God! You're right!

@Parker231 I think it's a bit facetious to pretend the burden of caring for a baby falls equally on the man and woman.

Your marriage will be as sexist as the man you marry. If you choose to marry a decent man, the mental load will be shared. If you choose to marry a dickhead the mental load will not be shared.

She forgot to mention putting her shoes on, bringing her keys and remembering to breathe throughout.

It’s an interesting discussion. My ex was all for sharing all responsibilities pre children and ‘adulting’ but once they came along was unable to pick up any more and actually did less despite me trying to make it balanced. Needless to say that’s why he is now an ex!

Now most mothers work and for many they take on all the default parent tasks. Working in many schools I can say that it is very rare that the father is the first emergency contact for example.

Out of all my married friends who do professional jobs, the woman has done way way more of the mental load since having kids. Before kids their housework/lifework split was fairly equal.

I'm unique among them in that my DH always did nearly all the housework and mental load before we had kids. Now we have DC it's like 60/40 him doing more. We both have professional jobs.

I don't know why more couples don't split things equally once kids come. You end up with most women being responsible for the mental load of like 4/5 people. It's grossly unfair.

I would say though OP, in my experience most relationships I know have been pretty equal in splitting out the mental load pre kids. So I would re-evaluate how you feel about this post kids and see what your opinion is then. Pregnancy/childbirth/breast feeding etc is inherently unequal, and taxing on the mother more, and I think a lot of family inequality around the mental load starts there.

Mental load is having to ask your partner to do stuff, rather than them just doing the thing. What’s the problem, they say, all you has to do was ask 🤷‍♀️.

In households you have a mess threshold and often the man has a lower one. They also often seem to have a lower ‘is my child ok?’ threshold. This must be coming from the way we raise girls and boys as it can’t all just be personality type. I’m generalising of course, I know some great partners and fathers.

It's posts like this that keep me coming back to MN when I know I really shouldn't!

Navigating the shop.

Priceless!

I think actually yes, in many cases it is an inhererent gendered struggle. The patriarchal society we live in is set up for women to take on the bulk of child care/domestic responsibilities. This means that in a traditional family setup, the male party is responsible for “normal adulting,” whilst the female party is responsible for her own “adulting,” plus thinking for however many children they have, maintaining relationships with friends/family, domestic chores, planning birthdays, christmasses, scheduling all the appointments, remembering all the sports days/field trips/non uniform days, arranging all the play dates, making sure uniform is clean, attending parents evenings, buying leaving gifts for work colleagues, etc etc… (I appreciate of course this isn’t every single family)
With respect, my life was nice and straightforward when it was just the two of us, each happily completing our “adulting” responsibilities, but now I would say there is a definite mental load attached to managing a household… maybe come back to us when you are “adulting” for 5 people instead of 1

I am not really getting your point OP. You’re saying it’s just life.

Yes it is. Doesn’t make it any less draining.

it is more mental load though!

This is so true. The key thing about the mental load when you have children - someone has to do these things, or the children are affected. This applies to necessary things (vaccinations, dentist appointments) all the way down to ‘minor’ things like remembering to rsvp to a party they’re invited to - you forget, the parent of the birthday child assumes you can’t attend, your child misses out. So saying that ‘he’d have to take responsibility’ ignores the fact that to a lot of men, these things are not important to them, for whatever reason. And if you know that your partner won’t ever think of these things, you end up being the one dealing with them, and while individually these tasks don’t take much time, they all add up.

And I think that @ByNimbleCrow not having children is significant to this discussion because they don’t realise (and neither did I, pre kids) how much more there is to do and how (for a variety of reasons) women end up being responsible.

To be fair, I refer to myself as the household manager. But only because I'm a manager in work and it basically sums up what I do at home:
I plan.
I manage the calendar.
I delegate tasks to those best suited to them (cooking, grass cutting, recycling, room tidying, washing collection and putting out).

This logic makes no sense - living with a partner should reduce your load, not keep it the same!

I personally don't think there's anything particularly admirable about remaining married to a man who can't feed his kids, do basic household tasks and who clearly doesn't respect you as a fellow parent or partner.

I also never said men shouldn't take responsibility, but every time a woman chooses to stay married to a man who does jack-shit, she is also part of the problem. She's also teaching her children that useless men who do fuck all are the norm - which just perpetuates the problem.

Should the man do more? Yes, absolutely, but when he doesn't, the woman doesn't need to stay. We're not in the 1950's anymore - we have choices.

When I was single and living in my own little house with no kids, I had an awful lot less thinking/planning/remembering/organising AKA mental load to deal with than I do now, as a wife and mother with a busy home to run. That was Adulting Level 2 (single adult living with parent being Level 1).
Then I moved on to Level 3 as a wife and mother.
Then 4 with the addition of complex health needs in one of my children.
Now on the precipice of Level 5 - adding a degree of responsibility and care for an elderly relative to the mix.
Luckily, my DH is a reformed model and I’d say the additional metal labour is pretty much evenly shared.
However, as a grown up who knows that not everyone lives the same life, I’m very aware that many men haven’t a scooby about the day to day lives of their own children or the work that goes into running a home. It’s only been a few decades since we broke free from the kitchen sink so we are still flushing out a lot of shitty attitudes, apparently stolen from members of our own sex who also are clueless about what we do.
Level 1 and Level 2 adulting do not generate anything like the mental load of later levels and it’s ludicrous to suggest that because people doing all the work for multiple people have a harder time then when they only had one person to think for that they are somehow failing or complaining about nothing.

AI and male Reform voters out in force here today, I see.

Happy fucking Mothers Day!