The ‘mental load’

It’s not hard to “understand”. I just don’t agree. I understand perfectly well what you’re saying, but I just don’t agree with it. Why do you think that means I don’t understand something?

The person who has the mental load has the burden of all the forward planning and decision making to do for the household. I think it's a bit like being a manager rather than just an employee. Big difference. Whereas if you work as a team then the mental load is shared and it doesn't feel such a burden. I think that's what people mean when they talk about the mental load.

Self indulgent twaddle. And I’m a working lone parent of three.

@Cachall You're being unreasonable not to suggest an alternative.

Some years ago, I was working full time while DH was in hospital and Mum was still living in her own place.

I drove from work to hospital, dropped off clean clothes for DH, explained yet again that I had to go pick up Mum, drove to Mum's.

Got her coat on and put her in the car. Managed to park. Led her inside.

Mum's name was called. Helped her to the accessible room.

Dentist: "Now, Mrs Mum, open wide..."

Pause. "Ah. You don't appear to be wearing your teeth."

We were there to check the fit of Mum's new false teeth. I later located them down the side of her armchair.

The “mental load” is being the person doing all of the life admin. HTH

But as pp have pointed out repeatedly, if one parent is a SAHP and one not, there isn’t an imbalance.

The term mental load only cones into play when you have two working parents both with similar jobs and hours, yet one is also doing all the organising and household management and the other isn’t.

That's pretty much the impression I'm getting from this thread too. It's not so much the amount of additional work, but more that it's often unequally distributed.

Apparently none of that matters though. Because it's really very simple. All you have to do is call and book the appointment, and all this other stuff takes care of itself.

No time off work needed, no toothbrushes needed.

Apparently I've been overthinking things. You book the appointment, and the kids just magic themselves there and back. It really is just a one minute job 😂..

Is that 'mental load' or 'life admin'?

Let’s not forget, hope there aren’t any traffic issues getting and leaving there, the dentist isn’t running behind, and the appointment doesn’t run over.

There was one the other day who carried the mental load of car and house insurance

The mental load itself isn’t usually the problem, it’s the lack of sharing the mental load equally when in a supposedly equal partnership

But should it be shared equally when other aspects of the household aren't? I know it's a Mumsnet thing to think that going out to work is basically a jolly, but if one of you has a high stress, long hours job and one doesn't, of course household tasks should largely fall one way.

Oh, do you just have to book the appointment and then a tiny fairy takes your child to it?

Why did no one tell me this? I could have saved so much time.

The mental load itself isn’t usually the problem, it’s the lack of sharing the mental load equally when in a supposedly equal partnership, or lack of having someone to share with when single.

Bloody hell! This is exactly what people mean when they say people are making a meal of it!

It takes a few minutes to book an appointment and add to the calendar but if you just check out after that’s and call it job done, what will the fallout be?

Yes. It's also not just the dentists' appointment, it's everything that goes with it:

• Book dentist's appointment.
• Arrange time off work/rearrange work appointments.
• Remember to email child's school to tell them child will be picked up early.
• Remember on the day that child has to go to dentist's appointment.
• Manage work so you're free to take child to appointment. Rush to school to collect them.
• Remember toothbrushes so they can brush their teeth prior to seeing the dentist.
• Book any follow-up work/appointments needed and make arrangements to be available for those.

But your jobs take less time than his jobs.

A short explanation of the mental load is this - the buck stops with you.

In our house, this is me. Dentists' trips, finding lost bits of toys, remembering something yellow for Yellow Day (new thing this year), planning Halloween costumes, remembering the consent form for the flu vaccine....

I can delegate some stuff, that's fine. But ultimately it's me remembering it. It's me who will have to fix any screw-ups. It's me who will have to comfort upset and disappointed kids if I mess up.

The buck stops with me. I have the mental load in our house.

When is the appointment? Before during or after school? Which parent will have to take the child? Will that parent have to shuffle their work around/arrange cover/make up working time? How will that affect childcare or any extra curriculars the child/ren may have? Kids now sick so have to reschedule and rethink it all. Blah blah blah.
It would be lovely if an app which sorted all this out for us without any mental energy on our part but I have certainly not heard of it.
It takes a few minutes to book an appointment and add to the calendar but if you just check out after that’s and call it job done, what will the fallout be?

I honestly think there isn’t anything wrong with calling mental load because most of it is mental work. Before you can do a task, you have to think about it and figure out what priority it is to you and to someone else, the cause and effects if you do x over y, etc, and how it can effect more than just yourself, and family, but others as well.

Not sure why some want to argue over the name. Plenty of descriptions have synonyms. It’s like arguing large vs huge.

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@C152

Someone mentioned 'mental load' is just a list. The point is, it's not just your own list. It's your list, the list for your kid(s), the list for your "partner". And it's not just the project management of everyone's lists, it's doing everything on everyone's lists. And when you take on all of the management and all of the doing, it's an exhausting hiding to nowhere.

Exactly. Its cumulative.

Any idiot can book a reminder in their calendar of a GP appointment or update their car insurance.

But if you’re doing all of those reminders and jobs on top of your day job and being a parent and you are inexplicably doing this for yourself and your kids and spouse it’s an additional load.

People keep breezily saying it’s easy to make lists and do life admin and of course it is but when its not just yours but everyone’s in the household it’s palpably harder and more unfair.

Call it “unfairness” if you don’t like “mental load”. But you can’t deny its a thing.

And the people you are doing this for don't tell you until the day before about some vitally important thing they were invited to weeks ago. You can have all the spreadsheets and reminders in the world, but when you are doing that for somebody else who doesn't bother to look at your spreadsheet/calendar/fucking great big neon sign, it's you that gets the blame.

That's because things add up. After you've spent all day ferrying the kids around, checking homework, planning doctor's visits, going to birthdays, buying groceries and meal planning, etc etc, even one extra task can feel overwhelming. And there are plenty of things that you only need to do once a year but they also add up.

A reminder is just that. sure i can write it on my calendar.. and it's there to read. However...

I have to to remember its there when i'm asked about booking another appointment for something else, i have to remember when i'm free, when my kids are in college, when i have physio or a hospital appointment. I also have to remember what else i'm meant to be doing that week, grocery shopping, housework, laundry.

I have to remember when the 20 other appointments over the next 6 weeks are, when someone asks me if i'm free at 10.30 on tuesday the fuckknows of may, and if i can't, i have to call back later, and that's another thing i have to remember. to do so i can write a reminder.