The ‘mental load’

@ricottalina

I don't know any full time professional mums who do everything at home. They tend to have dhs who help out in meaningful ways. Unless from the beginning they had nannies.

I don’t do everything at home. But I know a lot of professional women (myself included), who feel that their husbands or partners, even though they may do some of the share of work, don’t actually engage with the full burden of being expected to be the default parent, the planner, the thinker.

I think its also a sweeping overstatement to say that full time professional mums all have DHs who play an equal role in managing the household. I don’t think thats the norm at all. There is a growing share of men who are genuinely progressive about this but there is still a large rump of men who either don’t get it or who use tactical incompetence to get out of domestic planning and mental load.

It's not used to describe life being stressful, it's used to describe one person being the project manager in a relationship.

I suspect the OP is a person who is responsible for putting a mental load on their partner and has never actually experienced it themselves.

"Lone parent" is probably why you don't get it.

I don't know any full time professional mums who do everything at home. They tend to have dhs who help out in meaningful ways. Unless from the beginning they had nannies.

We’ll give us another phrase which describes it so succinctly.

It always makes me cringe too.

Yawn, not another one of these threads.

Why are there so many cool girls who are so annoyed or deliberately obtuse at the concept of mental load? It's not a difficult concept to grasp.

If one person in a relationship becomes the "project manager" of the relationship/family/children/home/all domestic stuff, the workload is lopsided and it creates resentment.

In a lot of modern households both parties are working (often full time). Quite often a woman will be working full time and doing the bulk of the childcare and housework. On top of this she is very often expected to do the planning and thinking (booking GP appointments/dental appointments, remembering homework and parents evenings, booking vet appointments, booking holidays, checking when various types of insurance need to be renewed, booking a cleaner, planning holidays, booking rail tickets, remembering to buy birthday cards, etc etc etc).

This is what mental load is. (And before anyone piles in, no it's not about paying bills). I don't understand why people are so determined to pretend they can't understand this.

Yes
Who told anyone life is not stressful
It is

Clearly you've never had an issue with too much to do and think about then. Lucky you. You want a medal, or something? Or is just looking down on women who struggle with it your bag?

No.

No. It’s a very useful term. I am one of those very organised people and I have through experience honed it all to a fine art and am very effective, but it still sometimes gets to me that there’s always an accumulation of small tasks waiting for me. Sure, each one might only take minutes, but the relentlessness of it can get overwhelming.

Yep

No.
Lone working parent to child with SEN.

I think it is unhelpful as a term because one person's "mental load" is being a solo parent-carer to multiple disabled children, with health issues of their own, working part-time and trying to make every penny stretch to keep a roof over their heads (meaning tasks like shopping around for car insurance actually really matter), and another's is being a SAHM to one non-disabled teenager attending mainstream school 40 hours a week, financially secure and finding organising a holiday stressful.

Neither is wrong to not enjoy the admin - and in fact I do often think some of the feelings underlying "unmanageable mental load" can be fairly universal eg feeling unsupported and undervalued - but as with other useful terms or analogies, sadly it becomes diluted the more mainstream usage becomes.

Perfectly capable adults painting themselves as the victims of mundane tasks? Yeah, it's mostly ridiculous.

No. It’s an accurate description of being the one who has to think about everything when you’re meant be in a partnership.

No.
I congratulate everyone who finds it so easy due to either circumstances, personality, upbringing, intelligence, education, but I think it's really fucking snotty and unaware to look down on others who struggle. You wouldn't look down at someone trying to read, or learn a new sport, or learn a new skill at work, so im not sure why people get so dismissive over people who struggle to multitask and juggle to-do lists in their head and havnt found an organisation mechanism that works for them yet, or is dealing with additional stresses that make it hard (and life is complex and we all deal with things differently)

I cringe when I see it

Just another meaningless buzz word/sentence 🤷‍♀️

That reminds me of a recent thread when a poster was complaining about all the "steps" involved in sending postcards when on holiday 😂.

Fucking love seeing it, particularly where the op's jobs are broken down in to every component and the husbands are given an umbrella term like diy or gardening

My jobs:
Load the dishwasher
Turn on the dishwasher
Empty the plates
Put away the cutlery
Put away the glassware
Renew passports

His jobs:
Cook dinner
Go to work

Yes its very dramatic and they are usually complaining about things that can be booked/organised months in advance.

It depends what people are counting as “mental load”. Organising weekly activities and ferrying multiple kids around to them or sorting out care for ageing relatives, sure. Sorting out the house insurance renewal or sending birthday cards, don’t be daft, that stuff takes five minutes once a year.
All too often people include ridiculous things in their “mental load” lists to make it look like they’re doing more than they are in an attempt to justify really not pulling their weight.

Yes