The ‘mental load’

Yes, I see that, and I agree. Ergo perhaps we collectively need to stop tolerating male weaponised incompetence and instead call it what it is: neglect.

I agree with this.

Being a SEN parent with multiple children, it is difficult and there is a mental load, but despite some things said by a few posters, many of us just get on with it quietly and likely don’t talk about the mental load until when we’re exhausted or on the verge of burnout.

Personally, I don’t find my mental load heavy, exhausting yes, more that it means my brain rarely gets to shut off and I’m often in a perpetual stage of alertness whether I want to be or not but it doesn’t mean that it is filled with trivial things.

I manage DH, DC1, DC2 (all ND with different needs and levels of explanation needed and children going to separate schools 30 minutes away from each other) and an active, clever, climbing toddler on a daily basis. I’d be a bit annoyed if someone thought I meant remembering to clean, secretary work for DH, and planning the occasional holiday with kids.

Yes I remember that post! 😆

Yes, this — plus the fact, which I don’t think anyone’s mentioned so far in the thread, that even if one’s male partner actively wanted to do all these things, schools and the NHS will still contact the mother first above all.

At DD’s school many working mothers complained that even if their husband’s contact details were down first as main parent the school would still email/phone the mum first for everything from “your kid had a head bump today” calls, to pickups to illness to school trip money and lost PE kit, and it was a huge effort to get them not to in itself.

@Sunflower459

That only works with non essential stuff though. Leave the ironing? Fine, no harm done.

But a parent who doesn’t take their child to necessary medical appointments or who forgets to inform school that their child is attending one or who doesn’t bother turning up to parents evening? You’re shading into neglect here. If one person washes their hands of this, it takes a very brave partner to say: “screw it I am not going to bother.”

Because at this point its well beyond not having ironed shirts or a healthy packed lunch. Very few mothers will be happy to engage in this kind of brinkmanship.

Some people have far more self-sufficient and proactive partners than others, too, I suppose. If you’re carrying a grown-ass man’s deadweight you’re likely to feel entitled to a bit more of a moan than your friend whose partner gets things done. This has always been a line for me and my partner. I’m not prepared to run myself ragged for an able-bodied man. I think I’d struggle to stay attracted to someone who needed mothering.

Yes, that was my point (I should have flagged the sarcasm, that’s on me!). The fact is that if women (and it is usually women doing them, let’s be honest—if it were typically men’s work it wouldn’t be undervalued) stopped doing all of these ‘trivial’ things the rest of their family would notice pretty soon.

Most of that is covered by a shared Google calendar. We have apps galore than sync with your bank for financial planning, direct debits look after themselves, your children should be managing their own homework or else you'll end up being one of those parents who has to spoon feed their children through exams.

I just don't know how people make such a meal of it all.

Much of it isn’t trivial though. Its not just the “tidying the sock drawer and dusting ornaments” things.

It’s the things that keep the household ticking over:

• Knowing when parents evening is and booking time off work for it
• Knowing when kids activities are and what they need for them
• Knowing when guests are coming and planning for their arrival
• Knowing when medical and dental appointments are for the family, informing school of absence and booking time off work
• Planning and booking holidays and booking the necessary leave
• Keeping on top of homework and checking it is done
• Knowing what PE kit is needed for certain days of the week and making sure it is washed, dried and packed
• Flagging social clashes and making sure they are added to the calendar
• Financial planning snd budgeting
• Managing bills and direct debits
• Animal and vet related issues

None of these individual tasks is overly burdensome on its own and any adult with capacity should be able to manage them.

The point is that very often all of this falls to one of the two adults in the family while the other is blissfully unaware and fails to factor it into their own plans.

Yes.

Reading through these comments I do think women need to do far less; if these things are really so trivial it won’t matter if they don’t get done.

I think this half the problem. We need to stop saying husbands/partners are "helping" and actually expect them to take responsibility and be active and equal participants in family life. By saying they are "helping" it delegates them to some sort of assistant role to the wife to whom everything is ultimately her responsibility.

I just watched a true crime short about a kid that went missing while on a camping trip with their dad, eventually they found a sock, which was later identified by his mother as belonging to him. Imagine being in that situation and having to tell your wife your child is missing and then having to be like 'hey honey, what kind of socks did you pack for him?'.

It’s often also because one partner has significantly higher expectations about certain things (whether justified or not), which can frequently lead to frustration.

We all carry a mental load. Stress, worries, thinking about work, worrying about Grandma's health. It's normal. Some have a heavier load than others due to illness, circumstances whatever.

Bleating on about "the mental load" of having to write the shopping list and remember the Christmas cards and other mundane tasks just makes people look silly. That's just daily life, it's normal to do those tasks, everyone has to go food shopping. Christmas cards are optional as are a lot of the things people put on their "mental load" list to make them look totally overwhelmed. Most of the time the unbearable mental load that posters like to moan about on her is 50% daily life tasks everyone does and 50% pointless shit that they only do because they think it's important but if they stopped no one would notice or care.

It's similarly cringe when posters go on about "life admin" being like a part time job. Yes of course sorting out the bills and booking events is boring, but you can do it sitting on the sofa whilst watching Netflix, it's hardly a burden. It's just adult life.

What are they ‘helping out’ with? Their own life presumably?
This is the attitude that causes the issue.

That somehow always fall disproportionately on women in a relationship though

It depends who is saying it. SAHM or someone working very P/T gets an eyeroll - that's a job.

Someone working full time and picking up all the family life admin and chores too, its fully justified.

How much of the 'mental load' is essential and how much do people put on themselves 'i need to do x because society forces me to/I will be judged,/I need to interfere because I have decided to ingrain myself in something that is nothing to do with me etc.'

I think it depends on the context. For some people with perhaps SEN children, multiple children, single parents it can be useful to describe how they are feeling and what they are coping with.

But I do cringe seeing it in relation to every day tasks. I remember one of the numerous sahm vs working mum threads that a poster with older children said she couldn't possibly work due to "mental load" and "life admin" of what transpired were very mundane tasks. One example she gave of that it took her all morning to hoover her house and detailed the very steps she took such as hoovering skirting boards, emptying Chambers of the hoover etc.

It's the expectation. Somebody has mentioned birthday cards. Yes, it takes two minutes to write them. It's not the doing, it's having to be the one who does the remembering.

I haven't really got a big mental load as I don't have children and I am not married to the sort of man who thinks it's my responsibility to book him in at the dentists, or send his family cards.

It's a bloody good job because I'm not great at remembering birthdays, or remembering to look at the book I wrote them down in.

I used to get a lot of grief from my father when I forgot a family member's birthday. How awfully selfish I was, etc.

He shut up about it when I pointed out that I had NEVER received a birthday card in his handwriting. He was there when I was born, yet he delegates the task of sending a card to his wife, who is not my mother. So I am selfish and indolent for not sending cards, but he's never done it. Because he has a wife.

And that, to me, is the problem in a nutshell. It's not the tasks, it's the expectation, and where the blame falls when it isn't done.

If you have kids, if they don't get to appointments, if they don't have clean PE kits, etc, who is still seen as responsible?

If the ‘mental load’ is so light I don’t really understand why so many men find it so difficult to carry their half of it.

If I were single I would just get on with life, challenges and all without thinking too much about the mental load however that’s not the case for me or many others which is why ‘the mental load’ is such an issue. It’s the generally hidden element of yes, granted everyday tasks but when one party is expected to carry a much greater share it gets mentioned.

Why is it okay for one person to breeze through never remembering or writing down for themselves if remembering is an issue, when the children last went to the dentist or what their favourite x,y,z is and continually asking the other person. Showboating 10% of a task and leaving the other 90% to someone else with generally no acknowledgement that they have only done a tiny part of a task is not okay and generally why the mental load is brought up.

Amen to that last sentence in particular.

Nope- it's a good description of being responsible for other people.

People are happy for managers to get paid more not because they work harder but because of the increased responsibility, the 'buck stopping with them' etc.

The whole point of the term was to explain that it's not just the stuff you do (life admin as one example) it's being the one to remember it all often for a load of other people. A bit like the 'I don't understand my wife complaining I don't do chores: if she asks me to help with something I will'. It's managing people who don't ever need to take the iniative themselves, and recognising that takes energy.