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 think this is a real straw man argument OP. When people complain about the “mental load” they’re usually not complaining about having to do all this stuff, like you are making them out to be. They are complaining about the fact that they are having to do so much more of it than their partner. They are complaining about the injustice of the situation. Maybe as a single parent this isn’t a dilemma you have but that doesn’t give you carte blanche to mischaracterise women facing structural sexism as weak feckless moaners who need to toughen up

@continentallentil It’s about having to carry a lot of info and responsibility in your head. Not writing the B’day cards, but remembering it’s a birthday, buying the card, posting the card

My phone helpfully tells me when it's someone's birthday, I have a stack of birthday cards and stamps, admittedly I have to get up off the sofa to get the card and a pen and I have to write the card but I can't see how that's going to take more than 5 minutes and then I post it when I next drive by a post box.

I occasionally want to buy an extra special card but if I found that too onerous to remember id set up a location based reminder on my phone to remind me when I next get to Waitrose to buy a card? Alternatively Id order one online.

These types of things are not good examples of mental load. If people are leaving things to the last minute having to arrange birthday cards then that's on them! Birthdays are on the same date every year, it's not like they are surprise events.

Better examples would be sorting out home insurance or trying to engage a workman.

I see it more as a sociological term to analyse the different roles between men and women in families. How overall the planning and organising comes down to women, even if they have jobs outside the home. It is useful to think about the impact of this mental load/emotional labour on the mental health of women. And also the implication of this on women in the workplace.

I don’t think it necessarily has to be about every couple bickering. It is a convenient term for people to use when thinking about the bigger picture. It’s something that can be researched in different countries and having a clear term can help with studies.

You can make your own word up for it. Lots of new phrases can be annoying; I hate ‘you do you’ for example. But there is a pattern of inequality that has become entrenched in relationships and it has become more of a big deal as women make up a bigger proportion of the workforce. I think it’s worthy of discussion. You clearly disagree!

But who went to buy the stack of cards? who makes sure there are stamps? Who put all the reminders in the phone? Why are they in your phone not DP/DH?

Then it's a shit partner problem.

I am wondering though, of these people that are carrying the bulk of this mental load, how many of them are at home more than their partners? how many of these men have seemingly ditched the mental load but carry the bulk of the financial one (which imo is an actual stressor) there may be an inequality in terms of who does what, but is there an equal financial load on each side or does the financial strain fall to the one person?

Maybe as a single parent this isn’t a dilemma you have but that doesn’t give you carte blanche to mischaracterise women facing structural sexism as weak feckless moaners who need to toughen up
This! Couldn't agree more.

I'm fortunate to be in a partnership that does share things fairly. You only have to listen to friends, talk to other mothers at social events, and read a few threads on Mumsnet to realise that plenty of women are getting a really crap deal.

I couldn't imagine being so ignorant that I'd feel the need to tell other women to shut up moaning, they're just being a martyr, they're just chores, everyone has to do housework, they're making stuff up to feel the victim.
I can't imagine being that bothered that other women have different experiences and want to use a word to describe a class based behaviour pattern.

Good lord will you just admit you’re a men’s rights activist and be done with it. Have you got a whole Reddit page dedicated to this?

Good lord will you just admit you’re a men’s rights activist and be done with it. Have you got a whole Reddit page dedicated to this?
😂

We're getting very close to "but men earn more / women earn less / if a woman doesn't earn the same as a man then she has no rights to have the domestic load shared equitably" aren't we?

Anything other than accepting there's systemic issues that disproportionately affect women.

I think though that this is how women have ended up carrying the mental load (or thinking/planning aspect) that traditionally they were at home- in previous generations, sometimes before having children - and even in many couples now the woman would likely have taken MAT leave and possibly a few years out for having children. But when the woman goes back to work her role changes outside the home - more hours spent at work, more responsibility, more earning power but frequently the balance doesn't tip for the husband to then start picking up some of the load, his role is largely the same as when there was someone at home sorting all this out.

Not to say SAHP should have to take on all the mental load, more a musing of how it became wifework to think/remember/plan/book things.

A woman usually by default will add to her mental load when she has kids because in most cases the mum will be the primary carer for a baby. Immediately she'll be thinking, planning the next feed, thinking about sterilising bottles, maybe booking vaccinations etc. If a man only takes 2 weeks paternity leave then obviously he doesn't take all of that on....and as the children grow (and/or you have more of them) the list of responsibility and planning grows. (A lot of which isnt physical work so could theoretically be shared between both parents)

Absolutely. Clearly the op thinks thinking about and doing household chores and admin are a woman’s role in life and men have too many manly things to think about like earning a wage. Us ladies are lucky to have the money to spend on birthday gifts and getting the proper food shop in, why in earth should we expect men to remember these things need doing on top of earning the money for it? And using the single parent thing as a red herring knowing darn well men absolve themselves further from financial responsibilities when separating is involved, yet refusing to acknowledge that at least women no longer have the mental stress of living with a man. Whichever way this is set out, women are being treated like shit by the male population in general when it comes to equality in a relationship.

Can any of you answer the question?

Try this then, see the whole thing as supporting your family in different ways. The useless DH that forgets to walk the dog while not seeing the dishes supports financially, you do the life Admin. That seems fair

@Gerrataere Absolutely. Clearly the op thinks thinking about and doing household chores and admin are a woman’s role in life and men have too many manly things to think about like earning a wage.

Really? I get the impression the OP thinks the exact opposite. That there’s no need for a woman to be the only one thinking about the food shop, or birthdays, or childcare or any of that and that if they choose to take it all on while working too then they are just a bit of a mug.

@Fizbosshoes I think maternity leave absolutely plays a part – being the one changing the baby all day you’re the one to notice he’s grown out of size 0-3 or whatever, and it affects you the most as he needs to wear clothes, so you’re then the one to bag up all the 0-3, source the 3-6 and put it in the drawers, then wash and dry, and sell or donate all the 0-3, and so on. Then when you go back to work out of habit you carry on buying the clothes and donating the old ones, only now you’re also having to label the clothes for nursery, so you do that too, and since you’re donating the clothes you also sort out donating the outgrown toys because it saves a trip, and so on. It snowballs.

Very conscious of this right now as I’m on my second maternity leave and I’m working hard not to become the baby’s expert! We’re keeping the split of chores and nursery runs for the eldest the same as if I were at work. The baby’s naptime is the equivalent to DP’s lunch break WFH and if he gets a break, so do I!

But the point is that in a lot of cases women are working ft and contributing financially and doing 90% of the mental load. That is the point!

Even if we assume that the man earns more, that doesn't automatically mean he's got less time. In many instances the higher paid you are the more flexibility you have with working hours etc (or so I'm led to believe in all the "I earn 100k" threads!😉)

They do it because men won’t. This is the point, it’s all well and good saying ‘they will if you don’t do it’ but they won’t. It becomes a battle of wills that men don’t even engage in. It’s not about looking after a man - men will look after themselves. They will not look after anything or anyone else if there’s a woman around to do it though.

Totally disagree, it’s actually really sad that’s your view of the world. This isn’t something I recognise from the men in my life at all.
Raise your standards. There are a great many capable men in the world who enjoy looking after their family actually, just as women do.

I’m not getting into the whole ‘not all men’ thing. Enough men are like this for it to be a problem for all women, even the ones who refuse to recognise it.

Men aren’t worth their bank accounts, not anymore and not to any woman who values herself more than to be an object for men to buy for a lifetime of service. I’m far better off financially single than I was with my ex, so what exactly did he bring to the table? What would any man who had a good wage have to offer me if they needed to be told to do any housework or life admin, or simply do it for them to avoid stressing their poor man brains out.

It’s not a problem for all women though is it? It’s certainly not a problem for me, most of the women I know have husbands who pack the nursery bag, make lunches, and do all the shit it takes to keep a family going.
All this whinging that it’s inevitable and something all women put up with is nonsense and only serves to trap women in
shitty relationships who think there’s nothing better for them.

Ah it’s not a problem for you, so obviously it’s not a problem in general…

Does he pack the lunches and do everything in the home without ever being told these things need doing? Because if he does all the chores and admin without being told and then further reminded then great, you are one of the rare ones who shares the mental load and I can see why sitting from up high you’d certainly not see what the problem is for the rest of us silly women who evidently made bad choices.

Im not saying it’s inevitable, I’m saying it’s far more common to find men who delegate most/everything to do with planning/thinking/actioning in the family admin to women than it is to find one who takes in his share without needing to be told what to do or handheld through it. And that’s before we get into the deliberate incompetence.

Just from my perspective, I earn more than than my DH.
It never occurred to me that that means he should actually take on more of the life admin jobs to make up for it.

You were the one who claimed it was “a problem for all women”.
It’s really not.

It is, just because something is not a personal problem for you as a woman, doesn’t mean things that affect women in general is nothing for you to be concerned about. An ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude when women in general are still being treated like men’s subordinates just perpetuates the issues.

I can’t believe you’re still harping on about this 😂

And for the single parent of 4 children?