The ‘mental load’

I think it genuinely is a bit of a “cool girl” posturing — look at me, I’m so organised it isn’t even work for me!

That’s fine if you’re a SAHP or have a part time job precisely to cover all of those things for a household — because it is work that someone had got to do, and traditionally it was all covered by the “at home” mother (or indeed an at home father). But DH and I both have “big jobs”: the only difference is that mine happens to have more flexibility in working hours, so by default I end up covering not just all the school runs and shopping trips, but also all the project management that goes along with it. But somehow this seems to be replicated across nearly all of the dual-income families I know, whether the woman has the “bigger” job or not. I know two NHS consultants married to each other, where the mum “project manages” everything while the dad puts on a good facade of strategic incompetence! And that’s not by any means unusual!

Yes and downplaying all that women do is so unhelpful from some posters. Or acting like it’s all easy and not boring drudgery. I don’t get why they would do this. Unless the posters are actually men. That’s the only thing that makes sense.

"Mental load" is only a thing worth complaining about if it's unbalanced between you and your partner, but even in that case, the only person who can actually do something about it is you.

I have seen posts that include things like "plumping the cushions" and "hoovering every day" and "buying presents for his side of the family" in the mental load so forgive me if I don't take the term as seriously as I could.

If you and your partner share things equally I'm sure you have a horrendous mental load compared to me, a child-free woman, but also I don't especially care. I organised my life to have as little mental load as possible and it's working out well for me.

Yes, before we go on a trip or holiday I have a really accurate sense of exactly how many hours it’s going to take to do the packing, but when I say “this is going to need at least four hours to get done, so if we don’t start now we will end up being up all night being stressed”, then DH will even start arguing with me over how long it’s going to take (because it can’t possibly be the amount of time I’ve suggested…) Later, at 2am…everyone is frazzled and I’m incandescent because yet again not only am I having to “project manage” the packing but I don’t even get any acknowledgment for doing it.

Now, the smug people on the thread will say that I have a “husband problem” (yes: obviously I do 😬); but it also seems to be something rather a lot of women have, which suggests that there is something structural going on as well.

This is completely true!

When we go on holiday my DH does no laundry/packing/house cleaning before. He usually decides to do some random task entirely unrelated to the imminent holiday. One year he cleaned the garage…

Who has said that single people don’t have a mental load?

Everyone has a mental load of some sorts, what it entails differs. How is that difficult to understand? Why is the term such a bad thing when it says on the tin what it is?

You use your brain, your mind to think, see, observe, remember, and do a task.

Yes, the term is often used in reference to parents, particularly mothers, but nowhere in the definition does it say that only parents have a mental load.

Don’t like the term, fine, but it’s ridiculous to make it out as if it is an unnecessary term.

There’s plenty of terms about and some want to act as if synonyms aren’t a thing.

What do you want to call it?

Being an adult is vague because the age one is considered an adult varies widely, unfortunately as does what people consider being an adult.

My DH “thinks about stuff” — his job, the news, the future of the Labour Party, stuff he’s been scrolling on the internet…what he doesn’t “think about” is a constant running narrative as he gets up every day of …

….who’s picking which child up, must get loo rolls today when passing Waitrose because there’s only two left and I’m in meetings all day tomorrow so I won’t be able to do it tomorrow, at lunch I need to ring my mum and send some flowers for a friend who’s ill, deadline for flux vac consent form and need to remind kid to pick up coat from school locker at home time, we have things in for fajitas but not enough wraps so get some of those with the loo rolls, need to send in an email to school today as DD has a hospital appointment on Friday and they like at least two days’ notice, put in petrol on way home as DD has to be picked up from hockey game tomorrow 20 miles away (okay, let’s make a detour to Sainsbury’s instead of Waitrose for the petrol and then I can get the loo rolls there plus the wraps. When I’m there, check when Dd next has food tech). Bring back that birthday card that I bought that I left in the office, and remind DD to ask her friend what she would like. Oh and pay piano teacher as my phone says I’ve just got paid. Nip in to feed the cat between Sains and piano practice and must remind DH to order her cat biscuits. Litter needs complete change. Ask DH to do it this evening when he gets in as I need to prep three sets of netting notes for tomorrow and put DD’s PE kit on….

DH doesn’t think about ANY of this stuff. Just like when we go on holiday he appears having packed his underwear and some T-shirts in a bag for life, and then says smugly: “I’m ready, I don’t know why you make such a big deal out of packing, you just need to be more organised” <while I do loads of laundry and count how many plug converters we have and look for the passports>

Yawn.

None of us are pretending we don't know what it means. We know what you mean, we just think it's silly.

Why are you pretending we don't understand?

No one is upset at the idea of having to do these task for a child, people are pointing out that doing these tasks for more than just yourself is extra work

Leaving aside the obvious “but what on earth did you expect when you chose to have a child?!” response, because that’s so obvious I can’t believe people are having to point it out: not necessarily. It’s entirely situational. There are probably single childfree people in completely different situations to you juggling just as much and thinking about just as much, but for some reason you seem to think that’s not the case, or that people with partners and kids need some kind of special term to show how difficult it all is.

For example: a single working person with a chronic medical condition or disability, trying to think about and organise countless medical appointments, attend those appointments and figure out how to get there because transport is inaccessible, appointments with the DWP that you have to go to or you get sanctioned, fitting that around work and planning time off and cover, while also, as an only child, looking after a parent with dementia, and trying to sort out their care at the same time, and with nobody to help at all. Who are you to say that doesn’t take more thinking about than a routine dentist’s appointment or ferrying the kids to extracurriculars, which aren’t exactly unexpected tasks in the first place? So many parents on this thread apparently incapable of putting themselves in someone else’s shoes or doing the most mundane of everyday things without complaining how much worse it is for them because they have to “think about stuff”.

For those that think it’s an over dramatisation of every day tasks. Do you split this with your DH? Or you’re happy to suck it all up and do it yourself?

You are then minimising all the extra stuff that women do. That leads to less equal partnerships. And let men get away with doing FA. Do you minimise everything else you do around the home? I can’t see the logic in this at all. Unless you are trying to be super cool and ‘oh I can do everything I’m super woman’ which is pretty stupid and a backward way of thinking.

Diminishing the mental load surely sets back any equality. Why do other women want that? It’s so bizarre.

And if you do share the mental load with your DH then I could understand why you wouldn’t think it’s much. But doing all of it is a lot and should be recognised as such.

I agree

what would you like me to call my situation, out of interest, if you think referring to it a 'mental load' is twaddle?

I'm not parenting at this point.. i'm a Carer, while also being a Personal Assistant to my mother and adult disabled son.

Is there another phrase you think i should be using to refer to the impact of it all?

i didn't imagine any of it would be easy.. i've worked with kids from babies to teenagers.

But as for the rest, i refer you to this paragraph from my previous post...
"I signed up to parent, with a competent partner and all that involves.. i don't remember reading in the small print that i'd be a single mum with a dickhead ExH, looking after a 19yo toddler, a teenager, my elderly mother, and myself while my own health and mobility nose dives to the point i'm considered significantly disabled in my own right... and that my 'mental load' would include not only running a household, but the medical timetables of 3 different adults around 2 sets of college/special school timetables."

Again, I know what it “means”. I just disagree with you. Why are people so hell bent on trying to make us “understand” this? I understand it your argument perfectly well. And I still think it’s twaddle.

What is it about parenting did people imagine was easy before they had kids? People complain how busy and stressed they are and how hard it is doing everything, what on earth were people expecting?

Gosh, are people on this thread still pretending they don’t know what this means? Still pretending that all parents equally share all parenting duties?

I wonder why some women engage in this pretence?

It's a surprise to people when there's two of you who are parents and only one of you is not only taking that responsibility, but is expected, without complaint, to take that responsibility.

I wouldn't do that at work. I wouldn't take on a joint management position and put up with my co-manager passing the extra workload on to me. Not only that, handing their own general workload on to me and expecting me to do it because it 'only takes five minutes'.

I can't imagine I'd be seen as some pathetic whiner for labelling myself as carrying the mental load in that scenario. I don't think I'd be wrong to bring up the extra load I'm carrying because someone else at an equal level to me isn't doing it.

My 5yo? No.. i kind of expected he would be by age 18 though... but no, because he is disabled.

So at age 19, i'm still having to book his dentist appointments, be available to take him to school, pick him up from school, have regular meetings with his school, book his dr & specialist appointments, be available for all of those, feed him, dress him, make sure he is showering.

I have a 19yo who operates at the same capacity as that 5yo.

I signed up to parent, with a competent parter and all that involves.. i don't remember reading in the small print that i'd be a single mum with a dickhead ExH, looking after a 19yo toddler, a teenager, my elderly mother, and myself while my own health and mobility nose dives to the point i'm considered significantly disabled in my own right... and that my 'mental load' would include not only running a household, but the medical timetables of 3 different adults around 2 sets of college/special school timetables.

Because work is traditionally male dominated and home is the female space.

That’s why managerial roles at home aren’t acknowledged or feted.

Patriarchy and internalised misogyny. For a change

No, you don’t understand this at all.

No one is upset at the idea of having to do these task for a child, people are pointing out that doing these tasks for more than just yourself is extra work.

That extra work is broken into the task planning and the task execution - like everything else in life.

Where most people have an unequal division of labour it is not just task execution, it is (often largely) the task planning.

Without acknowledging all the constituent parts of labour, you risk ignoring the work required.

A PP pointed out that many women find out too late that they have less than equal partnerships - because before having kids, each person is responsible for their own work, from mental load to task completion.

Again, ML is a helpful tool to articulate part of the task that is hidden and in danger of being overlooked.

Yet the ‘thinking’ part in a work environment is called management, strategy, planning.

So in a realm traditionally dominated by men, ‘the workplace’, this ‘thinking’ part of task execution is valued more highly than the ‘doing’ part.

And in a traditionally female realm, ‘the home’, it is considered so irrelevant as to not even deserve a name.

And you think it’s my argument that’s daft?

😂

Whenever I’ve seen women talk about the mental load it’s not to do with ‘being a parent’, it’s more usually to do with being a parent and also having to do all the thinking for and project managing of the person who is supposed to be your co-parent.

5 person family, with differing hours, needs, routines, activities and one who's autistic.

I spend my time thinking constantly about who needs to be where, with what equipment, clothing, cash (always forget that one) and preparation.

My husband asks me where everyone is. Just this week, I asked him to start tea while I took one to a club and came back to find him "watching the end of an episode". Another one was then late to their club because tea was late - the club he'd nagged me to rearrange to that day 🤬🤬🤬

Out of interest, what is wrong with language evolving?
You’ve just acknowledged that “thinking” does in fact have to happen in order to manage everyday life.
The more stuff you have to do, the more stuff you have to think about/manage/organise/remember/anticipate.
The more people you have to do stuff for, the more complicated the thinking/managing/organising/remembering/anticipating can become.
I don’t think anyone has said it’s a new thing, or just a parent thing, or that any one single part of it is particularly hard. It’s just that language has evolved to capture the current social reality we are in.
My mum didn’t have 15 emails from school and nursery before her morning tea break to dredge through, never mind what my ancestors millennia ago were getting up to.

The point I was making is that there is a difference in mental load between being a project leader and being a team member and that's a recognised fact. It's an extra mental load. It's not wrong to say so.

We don't deny that it is the case when when we get promoted at work. We don't deny that your mental load increases when you are not just responsible for ensuring your own work is done.

Imagine if someone who doesn't have the same responsibility as you said that what you do is 'just being an employee' and it's no more of a mental load than the work they do as a team member who only has to manage their own role in the project. After all, they still have to get to the office on time, they still have deadlines to meet, etc.

But it's not the same mental load is it? Just as for me, with no children, organising my own appointments, juggling work around those appointments, etc, is not the same mental load as doing all that for three other people as well as myself.

I am not saying being a mum is the mental load equivalent of being a project manager for a big company. I am saying it's as disingenuous to claim there is no difference in mental load between a single person who only has to do their own administration and somebody with dependants who isn't just responsible for themselves.

We recognise it in the workplace. We complain if we do more and it isn't recognised. Why is it not acceptable to recognise it in the home?