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.

Thing is, you see a lot of it on here. AIBU to give up work, or not work full time, go for the promotion etc etc. Myriad threads where women would rather look after their children or choose not to get into the rat race.

Sadly there's also a disproportionate amount of single parents, because unlike Australia for example, we don't have mandatory 50/50 rights if couples separate.

Then we have industries desperate to hire more women, who just aren't interested. Engineering is my field and there are precious few women. The old excuses are now starting to fade, now that we've been promoting female entry for the last 20 years. Women just don't seem to be interested and not because there are barriers.

Society is not in full control over people. There's a limit to its influence over people and at some stage, women are in control of their own interests and goals.

A measure of all jobs is almost meaningless. It can tell you some things but companies aren't really responsible for who applies for what job.

What are you on about dear?? I’ve only
said I was done with this once (not twice).

And yet you accuse ME of not being able to read things properly 😂.

Also: “don’t gotta” doesn’t make any sense. You might want to write things properly before you dish out advice on reading. You’re hilarious!

While we're here we might as well agree that misogyny in general, is a completely made up thing (by MN) and that's just women whinging and playing the victim as well....🙄

Misogyny definitely exists but there's nuance.

Within that nuance there's a lot of playing the victim.

Fizbosshoes
This thread is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it?

Women are responsible for their own oppression. No systemic issues here, no issues of complex socialisation patterns, definitely nothing to see, just woman-up a bit better like the cool girls and you'll have life sorted. Ok so maybe there might be a couple of issues, but really it's just women getting their knickers in a twist and playing the victim.

(Being sarcastic obviously)

Women have to take some responsibility for their choices, everyone else can't be blamed constantly

I find it hard when women are more bothered about telling other women off for using a phrase that describes their experiences than they are about the issue itself (especially when it seems to come with the baggage suggesting that they oppress themselves, they choose to take on the load, they are martyrs, etc

I know I am guilty of this in this context and it annoys me too in other contexts but I genuinely think that many women DO bring this on themselves, and they are too fussy at home. Men don't see mess - well neither do I until it gets to a certain point. Men don't care if kids wear odd socks, neither do I unless it's a really important occasion.

However, I am a bit of a helicopter mum and wife, so maybe I just organise everyone without even noticing I'm doing it!

Have you found the comment where I said DS works full time yet?

I also agree you have to take responsibility for your own choices - if you have 3 kids and 2 dogs, you chose that. (except in the case where the husband wanted the dogs and is now too "busy" to walk them - well you just put the lead in his hand and tell him to go out the door with them and not come back for half an hour!)

Not at all, but there's a difference between systemic oppression and life choices.

It's too early for my brain to accurately reply to the wage gap thing so I'll get back to that after work if I have time but @SamanthaCaine has summed it up pretty well. Society isn't forcing women into pt work, or unskilled work with fewer progression opportunities. Studies have shown that females tend toward jobs that involve people, males towards jobs with "stuff"

It's not the fault of society that Tina chooses to train as a hairdresser while Bob down the road goes to study mechanical engineering for example

Americanisms like: “don’t gotta”, “my kid’ “really dumb”…. ✔️
A healthy dash of misogyny ✔️

…AHA! Is that you, Andrew Tate??? 🤔 🤨

The studies show that women tend towards those (stereotypically female) lines of work. But not simply through choice.

Society as a whole/ patriarchy allowed women to work in roles that they deemed acceptable as paid womens work, rather than unpaid women's work. The knock on effect of that hundreds of years later isn't simply undone through individual choice, and certainly not when we still live in a patriarchal society.

The biggest residual cause of the gap is the lack of education and Equal opportunity women faced 20 to 40 years ago.

This is closing very quickly now. Women do move to jobs with a shorter commute which limits high earners in cities, another caise. This will change of course with hybrid working.

Society isn't forcing women into pt work, or unskilled work with fewer progression opportunities. Studies have shown that females tend toward jobs that involve people, males towards jobs with "stuff"

It's not the fault of society that Tina chooses to train as a hairdresser while Bob down the road goes to study mechanical engineering for example

Show me you don't understand socialisation without saying it 😂

There's countless studies that show this stuff starts from how people treat babies differently. I suspect you're not actually interested though OP as you seem oddly determined to blame women for systemic issues.

Still not found that full time comment huh?

Completely agree, women choose the arts and humanities because they are happy doing that.

Why the black and white thinking? There is a lot of room between this all or nothing position.

This popped into my inbox this am, no idea where from but it's a kind of " how to" guide if it doesn't encompass the mental load I don't know what does:

Hey summerberries,

Here we go......summer has begun! I hope you have a plan in place!

Daunting isn't it? All those weeks with no school...My week

Businesses can make a huge difference in helping parents through the holidays. Allowing flexibility on start and finish times, or splitting hours so parents can top up in the evening if they need to. Maybe even offering unpaid leave. Every little helps.

As a parent, my approach is this. Before the summer holidays each year I go through the calendar, block out some breaks to chunk up the time then work out when my husband and are working and when we need help. Next I send messages to the grandparents, aunties (there's only one) and uncles and ask for help. Then I message all the other working mums in our school classes to see if we can arrange some reciprocal play dates. They're always really grateful for the offer, I highly recommend it

BTW a husband is mentioned later in passing.

This isn't actually true. There are now countless studies and research that show innate differences between the sexes. Girls and boys tend towards different toys, girls are more interested in people and boys are more interested in things. Anyone who has worked in a preschool or has been around a lot of children will know there are differences present from as soon as children start interacting with the world around them (obviously there are always outliers too).
Women in general would rather be carers and social workers and nurses than be engineers and builders and scientists, it's just the way it is, and very few men seem to want to do nursing etc, women are naturally more nurturing.
Men and women are wired differently and the sooner we start admitting this the better. Women being pushed to act more like men isn't feminism.

What is a travesty is how poorly paid female preferred professions are, that we accept that a train driver should be paid 80k but a nurse 25k for example, and carers being seen as minimum wage jobs when they provide such an essential service to society.

It's not the fault of society that Tina chooses to train as a hairdresser while Bob down the road goes to study mechanical engineering for example.

Yes it is, at least partly. You are very naïve if you think that the still depressingly pervasive differences in the socialisation of girls and boys from infancy throughout childhood don't create lifelong, fundamental differences in aspirations, perceived talents and sources of satisfaction and self-worth. Add to that society's expectation that the mother should still be the default parent.

Mental load isn’t real?
The gender pay gap isn’t real?
OP are you real??

I've come into this one a bit late after reading most of the pages on here,but I thought I'd add my experiences.

I certainly use the term 'mental load' because it IS a load.I'm 'Thinking for Two' as my husband has a progressive neurological condition which,in its current phase amongst other things,is making him rather forgetful and unreliable.

I have to reduce his 'mental load' in order to keep him on an even keel.This means initiating all work/maintenance done on the house and all domestic arrangements.There's a plethora of hospital/general medical appointments to juggle as,like buses, they seem to come all together,and they're all in different clinics,surgeries and hospitals.

Despite the fact that everything is written down in big letters on a big chart,he still forgets things.
I can't trust him to remember a verbal instruction.

I had to be very organised in my professional life,and indeed sought counselling in the later stages of my career as this mental load together with managing DH's condition sometimes made me feel as though my head would explode!

The work element has now been removed as I'm retired so that's helped enormously,but now that there's more time available to devote to much-needed work on the house (eg an extension to provide downstairs facilities for DH) my head is still crowded.This is work that will be carried out by others,but I still have to initiate and plan it all.

As lots of PPs have said,it's not the doing,it's the thinking.

The 'Doing' can be paced.I'm one of those retirees mocked in past MN threads for only doing one 'Big Thing' a day.So be it.It means that we both stay calm and things get done- eventually.

The 'Thinking' on the other hand takes up a great deal of mental and physical energy as my mind will often be buzzing at night and sometimes I just cannot sleep thinking about things that I know very well can wait until morning.It fills my head constantly.Strategies such as burying myself in a good book do help,but my mind will wander,especially if I read something that triggers a thought about something I need to do!

This thread is really interesting from a psychological perspective - it reminds me of the demised “State of Fear” threads from the early days of the pandemic. A good number of people of a similar mindset trying to discuss and explain their perspectives and big picture issues being constantly belittled and dismissed and scoffed at by a smaller number of contributors who had the opposite perspective but an entrenched view that they knew better.

On this thread we have some posters starting with the OP basically insisting in the face of evidence and research that women are “playing the victim” and that they are simply refusing to take responsibility for their own choices.

I really am beginning to smell an agenda.

The comment about not blaming everything on other people / the system, couched as the malaise of the modern woman is particularly galling, as men are no less prone to this. In fact, in my first comment I mentioned the growing undercurrent that is a pushback against women and the issues they face in general.

Some mnn currently blame women for their emasculation, for their violence, for their disadvantages in the court system when it comes to custody issued and financial support for children they may have opted to walk away from.

I referred earlier to the “red pill” communities with Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson at the ends of that particular spectrum. I get a whiff of that here.

It all smacks of male superiority, but is also evident in attitudes to any perceived disadvantage such as poverty or disability or ill health, be it physical or mental. The clarion call of just sort yourself out, society owes you nothing is getting louder, and perpetuated by a whole slew of new self help gurus who opine that one should just positively think oneself out of the doldrums and any perceived systemic disadvantage - with an undertone of gas-lighting because none of it exists, apparently.

Interesting, very interesting.

And now we can probably be treated to opinions on how gas-lighting is such an over used term that people hate because of course no-one ever deceives or manipulates anyone else, and if they do it’s probably because they let them…..

I’ll just go and prepare some popcorn…..