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.

Yes I agree to some degree. There are a lot of women that go part time or stop working after having their babies. I was not one of them. I went back to my professional career when my babies were eight months old and have worked full time ever since. My daughter is studying STEM at university and has lots of working women role models.

I used to feel annoyed and frustrated at all the women who gave up work saying they wanted to be with their babies, their husband earned more so it was a ‘no-brainer’ etc. I thought these women were poor role models and anti-feminist.

Over time, I have started to think of it more as a social issue however. The world sanctions women staying at home with their babies without question. We are still far from being equal parents And most employers are still surprised by men wanting to work part time or do the school run after they have children. I do think there is a large social component to the gender pay gap which requires a big cultural shift. It should not be assumed that women want to stay home with their babies and give up work.

Society and cultural norms effect our choices though.

I was born in the late 70's. When I was in nursery there were different play areas and they each had a sign up saying whether that area was for boys, girls, a mix and how many children could be in that area. So the library was three girls, one boy, wet sand was boys only, dry sand was girls only, wendy house was girls only. You get the picture.

Where I grew up there was still the attitude in the 90's that women worked for pin money, so £1/hr (up from 98p/hr!) was fine. Careers advisors in school tended to funnel the girls on to beauty and childcare courses.

The world sanctions women staying at home with their babies without question.

Does it? SAHMs, has this been your experience?

Yep, they’re real, but it’s a ‘he’ with the initials A.T.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha no.

Try starting a thread on here with any problem and say you're a SAHM and see how much sympathy you get. Baby won't sleep? Go back to work. Ingrowing toenail? Go back to work and earn your own money. Mould in the shower? Stop leaching off your husband. etc.

I was a SAHM and fat at one point (now just fat) and I was like the devil incarnate on Mumsnet at any rate. And mumsnet reflects at least one portion of world society doesn't it.

@DaintyDinosaur

Over time, I have started to think of it more as a social issue however. The world sanctions women staying at home with their babies without question. We are still far from being equal parents And most employers are still surprised by men wanting to work part time or do the school run after they have children. I do think there is a large social component to the gender pay gap which requires a big cultural shift. It should not be assumed that women want to stay home with their babies and give up work.

This is exactly the point and this is fundamentally what "mental load" is about. It's not about people being bored of doing their washing and life admin or whatever. It's the fact that society still hugely disincentivises men from pulling their weight at home and with children.

Our society has (largely) made peace with women going out to work: that battle has been fought and won. What its barely scratched the surface of is the ongoing fight to get men to step up domestically and in childcare and life management.

As plenty of people have pointed out many women genuinely do want to remain at home with their children or work PT and there's nothing wrong with that at an individual level.

But at a societal level this trend underpins a vicious circle whereby the entire modern economy depends on the non-working or low working woman to do all the tasks -- let's call them "mental load" which the high earning partner can't or claims not to be able to do. You see this endlessly on threads: "I gave up work and that enabled him to do much better in his career." This statement always annoys me because it more or less acknowledges that the DH in question with his Big Job can't do anything at home.

This makes life much much harder for women like me who have to work to survive, and indeed for many women who don't have to work but choose to work. Because the whole default setting of the modern economy continues to be based on an unspoken but unshaken assumption that there is always someone (and by someone I almost always mean a woman) who can pick the kids up from school, take them to the dentist, sort out the food deliveries, pay the bills, book the appointments, book the holidays, be at home for the Amazon delivery, communicate with school, go to parents' evening. The whole endless, relentless trail of stuff which has to get done, regardless of what your employer wants.

And as women tend to do this by default, it's much easier for this whole infrastructure not to undergo the disruption it needs: for employers to look down their nose at men who want to go part time or who want to cry off the golf match because their kids are sick. Or for employers to be sniffy and refuse to promote women who choose to remote into a meeting because their childcare commute doesn't allow them to get into the office. It goes on and on and on and I've been on the raw end of the disadvantage that natural male inertia creates in my work for the best part of a decade.

So when people say; "but loads of women just don't want to work": I think: yes it's true. And of course no one should have to work if they don't want to and can afford not to. But in a large number of these cases where women supposedly don't want to work women actually don't work because they can't make having a job work on top of the slew of stuff they know their husband or partner won't help them with.

And I come back to the fact that what really needs to change is for society to much more deliberately tackle this infrastructure of male inertia about supporting women at home.

And yet many threads pop up on here asking for opinions on career vs money vs happiness vs stress. Almost exclusively, the advice is that money, the rat race and material wealth is not the priority.

Only recently did someone ask where the well paid cushy jobs were, precisely because the exchange of your soul for salary isn't what it's cracked up to be.

Some Nordic studies are finding that despite the push for equal representation in STEM fields, women are still deciding that engineering isn't for them. Society only goes so far in determining one's path.

I visit umpteen schools inspiring girls and telling them to follow their dreams, not to listen to outside influences and to do something they enjoy. The STEM Ambassador program has been running for 20+ years doing this exact thing, yet progress is glacial despite girls and women acing STEM classes. Women are brilliant but sadly don't aspire to the sort of work I do.

Many engineering firms now offer dynamic remote or hybrid working, where work fits in with life. I no longer have hours or requirements past meetings. Male or female, life is coming first and men aren't looked down on for being at home.

Ok maybe not ‘without question’. But it is seen as acceptable by many for women to stay home after babies. Most women are questioned on maternity leave, are you going back, will it be part-time? How many men get asked if they are going back part-time after having babies?

I was asked sooo many times if I was still part-time, how many days was i now doing…even though I had always worked full-time! There was an assumption that I had dropped days!

Yes, women are now challenged on social
media about not working. But come on, women not working because they have little kids is accepted far more than men doing that, by employers and society. It’s disingenuous to say otherwise.

’women are still deciding that engineering isn't for them. Society only goes so far in determining one's path

Women are brilliant but sadly don't aspire to the sort of work I do.’

If not social expectations, what is it? Biology? Hormones? Different brain structure?
There must be some reason. I find it interesting to think about.

I think the big elephant in the room is that tackling male inertia at home may involve accepting that there are fewer men who desperately want kids than there are women who desperately want kids.

I’m not saying that no men want kids, of course many do. But enough to take on half the childrearing, half the mental load, half the absences to cover sickness etc etc etc?

There’s only so far you can tell men that they should want this. What are women who desperately want kids going to do if they can’t find a man who does want this?

They’re not going to forego having kids, they’re going to have them with a man, take on all the mental load, suffer a gender pay gap and then blame it on society.

And I genuinely don’t know what the answer is.

Take up of the 6 month full pay male parental leave in my workplace is less than 2%, despite it being more profitable for a couple for both to take 6 month blocks than for the woman to take the whole lot (not at full pay throughout). We’ve done surveys and the overriding feedback is that women don’t want to give up any time with their babies, and the men aren’t bothered enough to push for it. How do you sort that out?

No doubt I’ll be accused of blaming women here but these are genuine concerns and nobody seems to have any answers.

Choices aren’t made in a vacuum. We live in a patriarchal society, and the “choices” women make are inside the patriarchy. And as we also live within a white supremacy, the “choices” are further limited for BIPOC women.

And the fact the thread has got to this point makes me belatedly realise OP has been merrily leading us up the garden path…

I suppose you've given up trying to find that full time comment... Because you made it up.

Make up your mind am I a woman that had a child at 14 with parents and social services taking over the care of my DS or Andrew Tate. You're absolutely batshit

As has been mentioned several times, males and females do have differently wired brains that serve to make them make different choices and have different preferences, such as girls going towards jobs based around people and boys towards things and stuff. It's seen in early years playing with different toys entirely with free choice, the same is even seen with apes. We are made up differently from male counterparts.

As also mentioned the drive to recruit more women into STEM careers hasn't really made more women go for those careers, not due to lack of opportunities or resources but because they don't want to. It isn't societal pressure dictating the career choices that people make, it is largely gender and how brains are wired.

I agree that caring jobs should be better paid and that it's insane that caring rules and nursing are minimum wage or low paid as they're taking on a large burden many can't/won't do and are contributing to the care of people that need it most.

What is wrong to say is that the pay gap is a systemic issue, women are choosing to take time out of work, maternity leave contributes a lot to the gap, as many chose to spend as long as possible with paid leave after having dc which is fine, but it's disingenuous to say that women are underpaid due to the patriarchy and societal expectations. Same role same pay, it's the law. Women aren't being paid 70p to the pound that men earn. Less time in work, less pay...

Choices aren’t made in a vacuum. We live in a patriarchal society, and the “choices” women make are inside the patriarchy. And as we also live within a white supremacy, the “choices” are further limited for BIPOC women.
Exactly this, and the fact we have to say this in 2023 is worrying.

Then again I'm sure in a couple of pages time we'll be told that sex work is a choice. Pretty much any topic that concerns women's oppression as a class will be met with 'but women make their choices so stop moaning and playing the victim'

It's really very handy for anyone who wants to turn a blind eye to systemic issues to focus on "but this individual woman chose..." as a way to avoid the big issues.

@fitzwilliamdarcy

I think the big elephant in the room is that tackling male inertia at home may involve accepting that there are fewer men who desperately want kids than there are women who desperately want kids.

I think you're absolutely right. Far fewer men than women really care about having kids. Many men go on to be very grateful that they've had kids but find me a 20 something/30 something man who is really prioritising having children and I'll find you a unicorn. And the number of men who want kids enough and are prepared to really disrupt their lives in order to support their wives is vanishingly small.

And this leads a lot of women to make a kind of Faustian bargain: I know I want kids, I know I can't count on him to enable me to both have kids and pursue my career. But I want kids more than I care about this. So therefore I will either have kids and stop work (if he can afford it) or I will have kids, continue to work and accept that he won't do much to help me because it was me that really wanted the kids.

I don't think this is fair or right but I do think its an ultimate bargaining chip for many men. You wanted 'em, you deal with 'em. How we tackle this, I don't really know.

I believe the jury is still out on the idea that men and women have differently wired brains, or whether socialisation, environment, cultural conditioning and neuroplasticity are all factors in the supposed measurable differences.

It’s yet another paradox - on one hand women should be able to choose and think their way into success, or they can’t really because innate characteristics.

Also how do you explain women who are successful in traditionally male dominated fields, and men with an aptitude for traditionally female roles?

I mean, that does also feed into another hot societal topic impacting constructed gender roles currently but I’m not going to be accused of shoe-horning any agenda into this thread or de-railing, as my position is observational rather than fixed at the moment.

But the subtle implication that the reason societal systems disadvantage any particular group is because they are “wired differently” can lead down a very slippery slope.

So you don’t like the term mental load, get over it and just don’t use it. I hate people referring to children as kids. So I don’t say kids.

Same role same pay, it's the law.

Yes, because no one breaks the law, finds loopholes around it, or will break other laws to not pay others fairly.

Also how do you explain women who are successful in traditionally male dominated fields, and men with an aptitude for traditionally female roles?

My personal feeling is that the existence of class level generalisations doesn't prevent the existence of many, many outliers and exceptions.

Also how do you explain women who are successful in traditionally male dominated fields, and men with an aptitude for traditionally female roles?

I don't think that's hard to explain at all. There are always outliers. Some of that is just down to individual personality, and some of it will be down to influences or experiences which led to that path or those preferences.

This. You've articulated what I've thought and observed for years.

It's incredibly interesting and the biggest problem, personally, is people hammering the view that it's the patriarchy instead of looking for more nuanced reasons. It's a useful perspective but isn't actually helping debate.

In truth I don't think anyone knows. If they did, the STEM Ambassadors program would have shut down 20 years ago. But millions still gets pumped into these initiatives and I still do outreach work to help raise profiles and support the next generation of girls. I'm not giving up any time soon.

Speaking to my own kids, schools have a long way to go, in terms of careers support and outdated views. That's not teacher bashing but teacher's sadly aren't often best placed to advise on careers. That's where people like me step in.

But like I say, there must be some difference if Scandinavian countries have more equal societies but even still have fewer women entering STEM fields. The research continues and we all keep a keen eye on it.

It's seen in early years playing with different toys entirely with free choice, the same is even seen with apes

Apes are socialised in their family groups. Thankfully, it's now deemed unethical to raise primates without maternal involvement - those that are separated from their mothers are usually socialised in groups themselves, rather than the raised in a family and now is rehomed due to trying to rip somebody's arm off at puberty.

You're also ignoring the fact that employers can and do offer lower grades/starting points to female applicants compared to male. It may very well be the Law, but the Law can be got around by such things as 'we always start staff on the lowest point of the scale when they don't have direct experience of this particular bespoke system' (but paying above when a male applies due to 'having extensive experience of a similar one'), recruitment and retention allowances, etc. The reason the Law exists is because employers can and will pay less to women for exactly the same role or comparative duties.

Oh, and you're also conflating sex and gender in your post. Gender is the learned roles and behaviours attributed to people on the basis of their sex. Sex based differences are such things as menstruation, average height, hip morphology, lean muscle mass, etc. Gender = Sociology. Sex = Science.

The answers on this thread are really interesting.

It seems because it is usually the woman responsible for the domestic tasks then these tasks are deemed trivial and non impactful.

I wonder if we reframed the question to be independent of gender - if a person has to complete X tasks in the home does it impact the quality or time taken to complete Y tasks in the workplace? And hence impact career progression?

I'm sure most would say yes. People have finite resources.

Steve Jobs wore the same clothes every day because he believed that every decision he made earlier on in the day impacted the quality of decisions he made later on in the day.

So IMO the mental load does have impact, should be shared and is worthy of its term.

@MrsDooDaa

I wonder if we reframed the question to be independent of gender - if a person has to complete X tasks in the home does it impact the quality or time taken to complete Y tasks in the workplace? And hence impact career progression?

The answer to the question is definitely yes. Because by definition hours in the day are limited and people can’t be in two places at the same time. So the quality of the work you do to advance your career will be impacted by the time you spend on the other stuff you need to get done to keep the wheels of your life turning.

The follow up question is why it is always men who require these domestic “facilitators” to enable them to advance their careers when working single mothers seem to be perfectly capable of managing to do their jobs, look after their children, maintain their homes etc. And more pertinently why so many women seem to fall over themselves to give up their careers to “facilitate” their other halves.

The fact so many women seem to manage adequately without domestic help if any kind while many men can’t seem to take their eye off their careers for a couple of minutes a day leaves me to conclude that one of two things are true. Either women are biologically far more capable than men on many levels or men invent the need for all this “facilitation” because they are lazy and entitled.

The jury is out.