AIBU to hate the term mental load?

[YeahIsaidit]

I cringe every time I read it, people lamenting that they can't cope with the mental load, partners aren't taking on an equal share of the mental load, argh! They're chores, household tasks, jobs. Mental load makes it sound like you're suffering from some kind of mental health issue rather than being dragged down by housework, stop it.

I'm not angry at all. Quite the opposite but clearly everyone else is, who use the phrase, as there's been a lot of heat in response to the OP.

Obviously a touchy subject but I guess it is when people carrying all that load are told what they don't want to hear.

He should but I think lots of families fall into this habit unconsciously. Naming it helps people move out of it and recognise where someone isn't demonstrating they give a shit

And to add, I'm pretty sure if I had just me and only one neuro typical young adult to worry about I'd also be acing this shit! (But wouldn't be tone deaf to the struggles of others).

On an individual level, you could argue that women should leave these relationships where the men aren't pulling their weight and you're probably correct. However, anecdotally there does seem to be a large percentage of men who just opt out of the mundane aspects of adult life and leave it to their female partner. I don't think it's wrong to wonder why this is and look at ways the next generations of men can be taught to be more equal partners in running the household and raising their children.

I'm all for women wanting to change, really I am. But these threads pop up all the time, along with the, 'my husband does nothing round the house' threads.

As with this one, the sheer number of women who resign themselves to a life like this and actively make excuses not to change. It's astonishing.

As with another thread, I'll ask the same question (to which there were no answers previously). What solutions is anyone proposing? I haven't read one that may usefully help women to improve things. And so the cycle continues. Rinse repeat.

All I’m seeing is you bashing a lot of women for coping differently to you. You’re getting very het up over this.

Hardfaced moo

Bless you, is that a put down?

Well I chose not to abandon the very poorly baby that I'd just delivered, I chose not to leave him in hospital and not come back for him, I chose to quit work so he didn't spend months in hospital with no parent around 8-6 every day. I chose to get pregnant again and to not abort because it was twins.

So yeah, I guess I chose to have a disabled child and twins....

Choose is a loaded word really.

Lots of things that make life more complicated are not really choices

I think some of you are mistaking the explanation of what the phrase means, with us complaining.

As @MistressoftheDarkSide said upthread, its about giving that unspoken act of domestic labour a NAME.

It doesn't matter if you feel its a burden or just life being lived and part and parcel of that.

Naming it gives it life and makes others have to acknowledge its existence.

So more people should just send their kids to school hungry and in dirty clothes. Right...

Bet you’re the type who prides herself in being ‘brutally honest’ and upsets friends unnecessarily too huh.

All of this.

Thank you @EarthlyNightshade

I'm amazed at anyone insisting it's a MN phenomenon and not a problem in real life. If you Google there are countless articles, cartoons, books etc on it and no mention of MN on the scrolling I did.

What's happened imo that a lot of this was traditionally wifework when a wife was either at home or worked pt.
The irony is that with 2 parents working ft, it requires more admin, time (even if each task is "just a minute") and headspace to arrange childcare (possibly petcare) , meals might need to be planned more carefully when no one is at home, logistics of who will be home at what time to collect.
Schools have generally more parent participation a) to make a varied and interesting experience for kids and b) equipment required because they are not funded properly.
And more often than not the "remember child A needs to take a pound for charity on Tuesday and wear something yellow, pay for school photos, fill in form to do cycling proficiency next week (check bike is ok) child B needs to take a pringles tube and a yoghurt pot on Wednesday (remember not to put in recycling) and needs a Roman costume for Thursday, (must order from Amazon) is going home with Benji on Friday (need to get pick up time and address from parent) and child C needs picking up for an orthodontist apt (that needs to have a form filled on the parent portal) at lunchtime...." is down to the woman...
Over time women in general have taken on more hours and/or responsibility at work...but still do the lions share of housework, childcare and organisation.
Men's role is often limited to : go to work, pick up or drop if children as directed by wife if it fits in with work and own hobbies

DP and I are beginning Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. We both recently realised it’s not that he doesn’t pull his weight, it’s that we’re both dividing everything between us in an inefficient manner. So if we’re both responsible for laundry, dishwasher, meal planning, shopping, cleaning, drop off, pick up, nursery admin, school transition, activities, bills, renewals, car, pet, birthdays, Christmas, recycling, home renovation, meter readings, budgets, MOT, on and on, then simultaneously neither of us are and things slip through the cracks – I thought you were doing it! – and we’re both carrying the mental load of it all.

There are some things we each naturally prefer and do solely – calendar and scheduling for me, IT and tech for him, gardening for me, bizarrely getting petrol for him – and those are much more efficient and require less mental load and less endless fucking discussion, because we just do them. There are some things neither of us want to do – the baby’s night wakings or 5am starts occasionally, so we split those alternating, and that’s better too, less resentment and one of us sleeps. So we’re working on splitting the rest so we each take sole ownership of something so we can stop the relentless background noise of what needs to be done. Luckily we have two children, so we can assign ourselves one each and do all their admin/activities/appointments!

I do think OP has one thing right which is to stop doing certain things, and Fair Play is good on that too: together you define what you value. If you decide sending Christmas cards to family is something you value, one of you gets that chore but it’s balanced out by another person getting a different chore. Personally I’d rather take that load off us all – what a waste of paper and energy, human and industrial! – we’re choosing not to get a pet or a third child because it’s too onerous, limit the kids’ sports and clubs and activities to what’s manageable, never moving house again even though we can afford it and would like a different house but I value my time more than the new house, refuse to volunteer for the PTA because I know my limits, donate the kids’ old stuff rather than painstakingly ebaying bundles, etc.

I'm personally quite low effort and fussy people irritate me. I can't relax with people who kind of attempt to manage everything and everyone around them, do you want to sit here, are you cold, is that coat going to be warm enough for you (literally a friend said that!). And so on. Quit forcing your mental load onto me!

Maybe there are two types of people, those that fuss a lot about stuff and those that don't.

The PE kit is an interesting one, I do remember once when I hadn't picked it up from the coat pile on the way to the machine and subsequently realising at the door on a Monday morning, and two DS and one DH all looking at me saying it doesn't need to be washed every week mum.

We were all on the same wavelength.

If your DS played a lot of rugby and came home caked in mud after every session, you might decide that was something that someone should wash. And not just once a week.

I am also quite low effort but I do get that some households have more tasks that actually are necessary than others.

Totally agree, but also, it is normal to complain about things that bother us about our spouse, without wanting to leave them.

OP seems like one of those people who just have zero ability to empathise beyond just saying "well why don't you just leave then", whereas most people do recognise that people can have issues in their relationship without considering it worth leaving over.

I don't moan about it as I know I could make my children stop doing the things they enjoy, but it definitely is a thing and I don't know a better term. Everything you mention is very basic household tasks so maybe you don't all have lots of other interests. I have two very busy children (with auditions/rehearsals/performances/training/competing/practicing plus one has autism and we have our own activities we enjoy) and the life admin and remembering everything takes a lot of time and have to be very organised (which we all are). We have somewhat split the mental load but I do carry the lion's share for the children (which is ok).

Yabu

Do you ever catch yourself saying to your partner:
Have you brushed their teeth?
Don't forget to make them drinks to take.
There's a delivery coming after 5 so you have to be back for then.
We haven't seen your Dad for ages, why don't you invite him over?
The dogs haven't been walked yet.
Check the app to see if it's still PE today.

All things partner should be thinking of doing themselves, but if you don't think of it and say or do it, there's a very high probability it won't happen.

Don't forget to make them drinks to take.

See I would call this irritating. And how much micro management trains someone into the behaviours you are micro managing? I doubt it takes much repetition of don't forget to imprint the message that someone will make sure I don't forget so I can forget about remembering to not forget.

And the easiness of the task has nothing to do with it. It's about there being at least one other person who should be doing it too but isn't.
If the task was to put a peanut in a jar every morning, after being the only person in a 4 person household to do that, on time, for eight years, don't you think you might get fucked off that nobody else ever put the damn peanut in the jar?

But you have trained every one around you in the peanut in the jar procedure. The peanut lifter is you, everyone knows.

I've not hear of Fair Play but sounds like you've got a good system and it's based on communication. The backbone of any successful relationship.

Ultimately I don't think it's about equality but equity, given everything is different and it's folly to assign weight to things. So I might do the card thing but my OH does other things that are important on a personal level. It all balances out and the critical thing is that there's mutual respect. Sadly this seems to be the thing that's lacking from many relationships and I don't buy the, 'but he doesn't see' schtick. Yes he sees, he's just willfully ignorant or purposely incompetent.