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 like the term mental load as it neatly encompasses everything that needs doing to run a household, family and work successfully.

I haven't seen a better catch-all phrase suggested yet, although others may be aware of them.

I’m a single parent too btw

When I was married it used to really bug me that I was the only one doing “the thinking” but I hadn’t discovered the term “mental load” yet. Might have helped me to explain to exh that such a thing existed! Mind you, he still spends his life putting effort into not remembering or being responsible for things.

It's a term I've only ever heard on MN but I do think it sums things up. For example, DH will cook at the weekends, (I do all the cooking in the week). He used to say to me on Saturday morning "What shall I buy to cook for tea tonight" and I would reply "you decide on the menu and get what you need. I've been deciding all week".
It's not just getting rid of the job of cooking, but the wider issue of thinking about what to have for dinner. If I have to be involved in that then I may as well cook - as that's the easy bit IMO.

I don’t think you understand what mental load means

If its not called mental load then what would you call it? Somebody has to do all the thinking, planning and executing of multiple things that aren't considered household chores. It really does need a name.

YABU as a lone parent who is waiting on an ADHD assessment the mental load of what you deem normal fills my whole life, and exhausts me. Great you don’t find it a struggle, don’t judge others that do. No one shares it with me, and I have poor executive function so everything from brushing teeth to remembering birthdays is a hard task.

Yeah maybe you would

I agree. DH has fairly recently been diagnosed with ADHD and is now more aware of that he needs to take on more of this. Which he absolutely will. Just as long as I tell him what, when & how .

No is a very useful word.

It wasn't a term I'd heard of when my kids were younger, but I still remember it being a thing and quite hard, so I'm glad someone has given a name to it now. It helps tackle it as an issue that mainly affects women when it has a name. The alternative names you've given don't work or describe it adequately op. Sorry!

Top tips, umm get on with it.

I do laundry twice a week both colours and whites unless there's a specific item needed for a specific thing.

Meal planning, whatever I fancy or whatever I have in and cbf making

Insurance policies, I am with wonderful companies that send reminder letters when due for renewal, perhaps you should look into these

Invites get stuck on the fridge so they're seen daily and I put an alarm on my phone,

Dentist goes as pp mentioned above

Have I missed anything? Should I be crying over the oven because of the 5 mins it took to decide what to make, I had to go to the shop to get chicken too, it was daunting but hey I managed, go me!

Planning is a perfectly fine word to use. Mental load makes it sound onerous.
You say someone has to do it. I say the problem is when it’s one person and not the couple.

Cognitive load.

There, fixed it.

I have adhd long ago diagnosed...

Do you all find being an adult hard?

YABU. It's a useful phrase to describe something others find draining - you don't, no need to brag and patronise.

The point, as others have said, is that there are very few women whose male partners (just using the most often cited example) do any of the mental tasks that are involved in running a family in the modern age. It's not like being given a list of tasks that have to be worked through e.g. ringing the dentist. It's being the one who carries in their heads everything that needs doing now and will or might need doing in the future. My DH didn't even know what time to collect the DC from school when I had Covid. He wouldn't have a clue what days their clubs and lessons are or what they needed for them, or where to go, or at what time. He doesn't know their friends' names, parents or where they live. Yes, I'm admitting that my DH isn't pulling his weight and yes, maybe I enable him by not insisting on him carrying some of it, but by God you can't deny it exists!

Same.
Its just called life.

Everyone has a mental load, it’s just the process of living.

I can’t help but think the people who regularly moan about mental load are same ones who put ‘eat breakfast’ and ‘brush teeth’ on their to do list.

So you share it- great. When people complain it tends to be because they’re doing it all. Bit daft to dismiss those complaints because you have a different experience.

If you don’t understand it, there’s probably someone else carrying it for you.

For me it's the silly little things. DD had a school concert today, it's in the calendar. I'm working so can't make it, DH is off so can. I told him about it last week. He can see the calendar too. 2 hours before it was due today, whilst in the middle of my work I chat to DH and mention the school concert. He had forgotten. Luckily I had remembered and told him, and he went.

It's the same for non uniform days, needing a pound coin for school, early finish days, birthday parties etc. He just doesn't remember, so I have to remember it all. He plays his part in these activities, as long as I'm there to remind him.

Other stuff though like, he wouldn't think to wash the bath mat, or clean the cat mats, or do the tesco online order. I remember it all, because he doesn't.

Maybe if I wasn't here, and he was a single dad he would start to remember. But the default is, I will remember so he doesn't have to. That is what the mental load is. Remembering all the little things, worrying that you don't forget it so you don't drop the ball and something happens (or doesn't happen).

I think that a good example is Christmas. I'm 55, men handed over cash and that was it. But most men of that time would have a gripe if Christmas wasn't a grand affair attended by and attending family and friends.
This end of term not one Dad was in the teacher present what's app group. It's the ongoing organisation of the whole of a child's life, their friendships, social, medical activities, then the house that some Mum's have to do. I'm conscious of it because I was widowed. So I pick up some of it for her, as I do childcare.

YABU and for what it's worth I don't think I'd feel like I was carrying 'the mental load' if I was a single parent because that would just be my role. I'd know it's just me and the kids so wouldn't feel so abandoned to it all.

Being married to a dead weight that thinks going to work is enough vs working full time and being the only person who organises/sorts/arranges/cooks/cleans on top of attempting to be a decent parent is beyond exhausting. That's where the mental load fatigue comes in. yes I need to leave him, no it's not that easy

I think you're just being an antagonistic cunt for the sake of it, to be honest OP. I'm a single mum too. It's fucking gruelling. Doesn't give you carte blanche to be a twat to other people.

Yea, you're totally not getting this. Even though it's been explained very well by lots of posters. Do you work full time OP?

Yes! Thank you someone that gets the point I'm trying to make. Complaints on here regularly about carrying this "mental load" and then when you get into it it's just carrying on a normal adult life. How people function when having to make actual decisions or do anything outside of the ordinary day to day, going by mn is beyond me

It's not about the tasks, which are themselves not hard you are right.

It's the fact that all these tasks are done by one partner (normally the woman) while the other does none of it and making dental apps, getting pe kits ready, sorting this that and the other never even occurs to them.

Why does it not occur to them? Why does it not cross their mind? Why do these things not weigh on their mind? Why do they not bear half the... Mental load?