to resent the 'mental load'

[newnameoldme]

i just read the mental load and it gave a name to what i always feel and complain of.. why I and all the other women i know, even those with partners who take on their fair share of parenting voluntarily - we still bear the responsibility of this weight of constantly having to think about everything.
why is everything only our concerns? I resent it both because it's on my back and in my head every minute of the day whilst men are me are largely unfettered by this mental load. I resent that freedom they have!
It's isolating to bear the burden of all this stuff and the resentment overtime poisons relationships.
Do women naturally care more or do we have no choice as men opt out of being bothered by the minutiae of life

Lu1a - there may be an element of nature but it's still perfectly possible to make a conscious effort to redress the balance. If god forbid you'd been rushed into hospital in the post natal period and rendered unable to care for your baby, your dh would have managed fine.

Besides, you're talking about the very early weeks when a newborn is waking for night feeds. Even if the mother is ebf (as I did) that doesn't mean dad can't get more involved soon. There is no logical reason why a mum can't transfer the last 3 or 6 months out of a years ML to the baby's father. If you both agree as a couple that you don't want that, then that's your prerogative, but don't kid yourself that you're not establishing a pattern of roles.

I love the title of this thread. 'Mental load' is exactly how I would describe it.

I try to divide household responsibilities, eg, the car - taxing, insuring etc is his. Last week I noticed that one of our front lights is not fully working. Mentioned it to him and nothing doing.

Thing is, I keep thinking about it but I am determined not to mention it again as I am FED UP with carrying the 'mental load'. If I mention it again (and I will have to do that at least 5 times before anything happens) then I am perpetuating the situation. So, he is the next person to need the car in the evening, and I am rather cruelly hoping he gets pulled over for it.

Signed, mean wife.

I refused to do lots of the traditional "wifework" stuff before we had children - I don't prompt him to call his mother or ensure presents/thank you cards go to his family etc

But I find it much harder now we have children. If I stop remembering that its been awhile since the kids feet were measured or they saw a dentist, who will suffer?

"Don't kid yourself that you're not establishing a pattern of roles"

We probably did realise that we were establishing a pattern of roles but for us, it would have been harder work and more stress to go against those roles, than to just get on with it as it evolved.

I do realise that some men find it easier to engage though, just as some women find motherhood extremely difficult psychologically.

God this thread resonates so much.

DH went for a lunchtime nap today and just now mentioned that a bird must've got in as there was a bird poo on the duvet.

"Oh, did you strip the bed?"

"Ah no, I didn't mind."

FFS. It could've been washed and dried by now!!

Fair enough if that's what suits you Lu, though I think you're over emphasising the gender differences. I suspect it's a very tiny percentage of women who find motherhood extremely difficult psychologically. I personally felt I had a different bond with my babies because I'd physically carried them and given birth. However, I guess the driving force behind my desire to share as much as possible with dh was that I was very aware that other than feeding directly from the breast, there was literally nothing that he couldn't do at least as well as me. We both came to parenting with the same skills set (i.e. Virtually nothing ) Likewise, there was no logical reason why I couldn't hold down a good job and earn in the same way that dh could

We have a dd and a ds and the other driving force for me has been a desire for them not to grow up feeling pigeonholed into following a particular path because of their gender. If they choose to have kids I'd hope that neither feels pressure to either carry the entire mental load, or indeed to feel pressured into being the sole breadwinner but unable to operate a washing machine!

In some people there's a link between the ability to multi-task and how much money or status is involved in a set of tasks.

I'm married to someone who has a job where the ability to multi-task is pretty fundamental. I still get loads of jokes from his family about how he couldn't possibly do anything for himself or others in the house, how I'm the organized one and how a man couldn't multi-task.

The ironic thing is I was one of those kids who couldn't remember where they were going, coudn't think about the time, constanly forgetting things and being late, forgot own telephone number all the time, would fall over walking in a straight line, could stare for ages and not realize someone was talking to me. My friends used to laugh at me but then when I got married the world decided I was the fucking organized, multi-tasking one

It's an aspect of sexism that's so insidious and entrenched in society. The thing is, it's so easy to pass on responsibilty or tasks to someone. You don't need to state that you're not doing it, or that you don't think it's your job. All you have to do is not have it at the front of the line in your mental space, Or if you do think about tasks fleetingly then just don't be the first to get up and do them. The less you do, the less it's in your mental space.

In little time someone else in your household or team will have taken on the thinking duties. Then less and less you have to deal with the consequences of not thinking and doing.

I've read this thread with so many head nods and I hate it!

I work so many more hours than him in a really stressful job and I'm training to try and improve it so I can either be less stressed or be paid reasonably for the stress. So I am often doing 60 hours weeks and until recently he only did 30.

I know he's not a maid but I would be so happy if one day he would take some iniative and just clean the house, or suggest a day trip with an idea of how to get there. Or ask me if he should book some time off work, rather than waiting till the month before his annual leave runs out and having 2 weeks off to sit on the sofa by himself, saying its a shame I couldn't get time off even though he knows its my works busy period and I asked him all through summer when should I book some time to spend together.

I am constantly fighting mentally to not facilitate his laziness and clean up for him; which at the moment means the house gets really gross until I lose my temper and insist we clean it and we waste a whole saturday or Sunday doing it properly together.

We are late 20's and I would like to buy a house next year when my training is done. But I know how it'll go. I'll have to do every single part of buying it alone. When he went full time he decided he was going to start saving for a house with me and he was going to open a help to buy ISA. That form is still on the side and he got it before Christmas. Anything that breaks I'll have to organise fixing it with the added bonus of occasional interference from his parents. And it really puts me of making that commitment to him.

Bab - maybe it depends on the husband? I just know that if I had returned to work I would have been permanently exhausted and resentful because trying to get him to do his share of the mental load relating to our kids and the house would have been like bashing my head against a brick wall. I was not and am not prepared to live like that.

He is certainly not lazy however, and our mental loads are probably equally stressful, just in very different ways. If he was a lazy git I wouldn't do the half of what I do for him. He has taken a lot of pressure off me and I take a lot off him. I suppose it must suit us, or we wouldn't be doing it.

But dh, having been junior to me when we met (same job as me), got promoted and promoted. So it made sense for me to remain part time and do home stuff

I KNEW Michelle Obama was on Mumsnet :)

This drove me crazy for years. DH is lovely, works hard, shared childrearing, house stuff but the ball starts in my court - why?? Why isn't he responsible for everything and then he decides to sit down and talk to me to divide it up fairly?

Many posters here are repeating this "why not talk to him" "why not tell him he is responsible for bins and then forget about it". The thing is as an adult, I presume that I am responsible for the bins unless someone tells me otherwise - not the other way around. Why isn't he saying "how about I do the bins every week".

And the housework and bins are only the tip of it. You can hire a cleaner/get the kids involved. What drove me nuts was the mental stuff of school forms/Monday is "blue day!"'/making sure connections with parents/school/dentists/ etc.

Yes I'm sure a lot depends on the person you partner. I also think it's significant that you acknowledge that your dh isn't lazy, and probably has as much of a mental
Load as you, just a different one.

I just think men and women aren't as fundamentally different as social constructs have us believe. When I look at my son and daughter I don't think they want vastly different things out of life. Nor do dh and I.... we both wanted a family, a nice home, decent jobs... Skills sets also aren't vastly different between many couples so there's no logical reason why certain tasks should fall to one gender.

Lastly, I think a lot of this 'mental load' we're talking about isn't a case of specific skills where one person is naturally more talented. A lot of it frankly is a boring grind- remembering to pick up the milk, book the car in for a service etc. Why should that fall to one person?

Babbity, yup it's that low status, little social reward, boring, everyday crap.

It's all very relatively easy stuff for someone to train themselves to do, and put in routines. Even if they don't know, or are so called "bad at multi tasking". I would even say it's the kind of tasks that lend themselves well to routines and lists.

It's Saturday and my 6 year old is crying and asking for food. What do I do?

1. Nothing.
2. Look at the clock and if you can tick the 2 boxes, leap to 3.

2.a It's between 12 and 2 2. b They havn't been fed

1. FUCKING FEED THEM.

If you don't know what 6 year olds eat then google.

I haven't read the whole thread, I've just read the link. I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ME WHO FELT THIS WAY!

Bossadad that research, if true, only accounts for a mother being more empathetic for 'up to 2 years'. Which means it's barely relevant to the mental load or this thread.

And for the record, my DH was more empathetic and hands-on with our babies than I was. He likes babies far more than I do. Even though I breastfed, he actually did the lion's share of baby care. Including feeding bottles of expressed milk and settling the babies after I fed them during the night. He was an absolute star. And I don't buy the 'mums are more instinctive' thing. Not true for us. Interesting, my brother-in-law, DH's brother is exactly the same with his kids. How they were brought up?

I refused to do lots of the traditional "wifework" stuff before we had children - I don't prompt him to call his mother or ensure presents/thank you cards go to his family etc

But I find it much harder now we have children. If I stop remembering that its been awhile since the kids feet were measured or they saw a dentist, who will suffer?

^ This!

The people who suggest 'just leave it' don't seem to understand that, morally, I can't 'just leave' the kids in shoes that are too small, or risk them having cavities because they haven't seen a dentist for years.

These people also tend to say 'just go on strike and only do stuff for you and the kids' - well, that's fine, but the stuff I do for all of us is things like cooking rather than having takeaway every night. If I stop cooking, it affects our (joint) finances, as DH would live off takeaways. There are very few things (I think laundry is one of them) where me going on strike only affects DH.

The whole thing is so insidious. I don't want to feel like a martyr, but nor do I want my kids to suffer because I am trying to make a point to their dad. I'm prepared to drop my standards only so far - so I don't care about him feeding them fishfingers and baked beans well, I do a bit, as it means I feel I always have to cook a fresh meal with plenty of veg the next day, to make up for it, but I agree that's self-imposed, but I do care if the kids end up missing out on an activity because they don't have the right stuff / are brought at the right time / haven't returned the form. So I do it.

I have started to say 'I'm not the calendar' when asked what / where / when about stuff, and that has helped. And the fact that our dds have noticed the imbalance has provoked some interesting discussions - dd1 is just the age to be very concerned about things being fair.

I relate to this and I resent it. I haven't found not doing things helps. They just don't get done which is fine if it's unimportant stuff but not at all fine when it' stuff that makes the kids suffer. His hygiene for the kids is rubbish (teeth cleaning, hair brushing, baths, nail cutting, shoe fitting, clothes appropriate for the weather, dentists, doctors, medicine if they are ill, hand washing)

TBH I don't mind.

With that mental load means I get more control in making decisions.
I gave up my career to have kids, and still only work 15 hours a week and my youngest is 17.
OH works a 60 hour week.
I am currently sorting out insurance for his car. He doesn't even know when it expires.
But I have also slept a little late, been to the gym and been for a walk in the woods taking photographs.

I wouldn't swap my life for his.

Just in response to comments about there being some research that supports a mother's instinctive responses to her baby - yes, I'm aware of these and there does seem to be some truth to them. I don't think it follows though that you therefore have a natural instinct to know when the loo roll is about to run out, which of your child's friends is overdue for a play date, what outfit she needs ironed for that party at the weekend and how many more eggs you need to buy for the visitors you have coming tomorrow. Two slightly different things

@Whatsinausername10 if he pisses you off now it'll be a million times worth if you have kids. I'd really think hard about him as stuff like this chips away at you and resentment sets in.

@grasspidgeons my dh is the same. He never remembers snacks (two cannot have certain foods as they have an autoimmune disease) on days out, teeth or hair brushing it really pisses me off that it falls to me. These boring crappy jobs. He will say I'm in the routine but they're at school in the week aside from one and then we're all home at the weekend so why is it me that has to remember spare clothes for the child that hates getting even slightly wet?!

Of course women's brains change when they have a baby, humans have highly plastic brains which h change all the time in response to...... just things that happen
taxi drivers brains change when they do the knowledge doesn't mean evolution has 'designed' them to be taxi drivers
Ffs stop with the evolutionary psychology gobshite and bear in mind that you can't get ought from is!

Msqueen- don't worry - I don't think I want kids. I have previously had poor mental health and i have a always thought that I'd really struggle to cope with the "mental load" of a having a child. I don't think I'd be in a good enough financial position for it either until I was to old to have one anyway!

But dh, having been junior to me when we met (same job as me), got promoted and promoted. So it made sense for me to remain part time and do home stuff

I KNEW Michelle Obama was on Mumsnet smile

Not quite. We are both teachers. Which at least means that a) he has long holidays and b) he knows how difficult kids can be.

It's taken many years for DH & I to resolve the mental load balance but we are slowly getting there. What I had to realise is that I just have to share the burden and delegate and DH is better at just seeing what needs doing and getting on with it. This is after many pressure cooker type arguments when I've just lost it from being weighed down by it all.

OP you are absolutely not being unreasonable. It drives me insane.

My DH is wonderful with our DS (to be honest probably better then me at this stage, more relaxed and instinctive). He does cook and takes charge of some 'manly' areas such as tax and car stuff (to be fair, he works in tax and I don't drive so it wouldn't make much sense otherwise!)

BUT no ability to prioritise tasks, make lists and follow through effectively when we are busy. What drives me more mad then anything is his habit of taking on a job (say, booking holiday rental car) and doing only 90% if it. He will research, discuss with me and assemble the order online..then not book. I then literally have to return the item to my mental to-do list to remind him in a few weeks...

If I'm honest it's why I'll stick with two DC. I work in the kind of job that you can tick along in, not really progressing but being ok - or you can do further study/ read/ attend conferences/ volunteer etc and develop a specialism which leads to more interesting and better paid roles. I just know that 3 or more DC would tip me over, life admin-wise into never having the energy to progress. If my husband was different on this issue I may very well make different choices.

It drives me nuts.
All the shit going on in my head and all he has to do is go to work and do what he's told around the house?
By the time we leave the house (late) every morning, I've pretty much done a full day's work, and he has the bloody cheek to say 'I hate mornings - you're always so stressed' as I scream at the kids while throwing shoes and bags at them so I can get out in time to catch the train to work.