To ask for help listing mental load tasks

[Featherwand]

I'm making a list for DH, who today I told can immediately take over the mental/domestic load. I keep being told I'm overreacting when I get pissed off that I get zero help with it. So, please help me list all of the tasks that it involves, I don't want to forget anything. Yes, I'm petty. We have two DC, one a baby and one five, and both work full time.

This is what I have so far:
All school admin - deadlines, volunteering, sorting lunches, homework, remembering non uniform days/parents evenings. Contacting office if DC is off sick.
All nursery admin - same as above, but add in paying fees on time.
Organising doctors/dentist/opticians/hairdressers appointments, taking time off work to take DC if necessary.
Leaving work if kids are ill and sent home from school/nursery.
Kids' laundry.
Making sure clothes and shoes fit, and are appropriate for the season. Clearing outgrown clothes from wardrobes.
Donating/gifting/selling outgrown clothes and toys.
Staying on top of all household bills.
Researching and booking holidays.
Organising days out.
Organising activities and childcare for school holidays.
Organising DC's after school club.
Organising out of school clubs, taking DC and paying fees.
Buying birthday/Christmas cards and presents from DC to family members.
Buying birthday/Christmas cards and presents for DC.
RSVPing to never ending birthday parties, buying cards and presents and taking DC.
Sorting seasonal things e.g. Halloween costumes, Christmas related activities.
Keeping DC's toiletries stocked up.
Keeping house supplied with healthy food for DC, especially ingredients for meals.

Booking and attending parents' meetings

If you can bare more admin on the list, put frequency on there. Play date every fortnight? Family day out/park trip/swimming every fortnight?

Loo roll, toilet cleaner, cleaning products.
When did we last wash the towels/ bed sheets.
Where are the red books/ vaccination records.
Pets. When are their jabs due, when are we going on holiday, are the kennels already fully booked, how much pet food do we have left. Where are the poo bags? Has the poo been picked up today?

Another vote for Eve Rodsky

Theres also the non-tangible things that add to the mental thoughts, the constant churn that doesnt often need action but is a process you go through in your head

like whonis DC currently playing with, are they happy, are they meeting thier milestones, why didnt they eat their dinner today, they have a bit of a rash, do i meed to put some cream on it, am i raising them right, hair is getting a bit long, shall i book a trim, spider webs are getting out of control, that lampshade look dusty, is it PE tomorrow? Do they look like they are squinting? Maybe i should book an eye appointment. Theu dont seem themself today, maybe they are coking down with something, better check we have calpol. And on and on.

Evening tiny things like opening the curtains in the morning, taking the bins out (and returning them), letting the dogs out into the garden and doing a poo patrol, organising repeat prescriptions for daughter, booking hair cuts and dentist appointments, stacking the dishwasher and emptying it.

Washing tea towels

This looks incredible!

It struck me as I was listening to the video though that both partners really have to want to make it work. It won’t work if one is just paying lip service and wants to keep things unfair in their own interest.

I have tried this with my husband and he says it's just a way for women to micromanage husbands and make them do it all the woman's way. I wonder on which forum are all the men asking how to get their wives to take on more of the mental load?

Researching schools, booking onto open days, application processes
School uniform/ sports kits / swimming/ dance / football kit - buying it, finding lost kit, washing it, making sure it's taken on the right day
Organising kids savings/ bank accounts/ bank cards or researching future education / uni costs
Making sure the kids have a good range of books to read at the right level that will interest them
Research and arranging extra help or tuition for anything the kids are struggling with at school
Arranging playdates
Researching & applying IT controls on games consoles, phones, ipads, laptops. Monitoring usage.

There needs to be a discussion about necessity of the task and the standard to which it is done.

Left to their own devices a lot of men simply wouldn't do a lot of tasks that a lot of women see as essential or would put a lot less effort in but some women don't help themselves with gold plated expectations or martyring themselves instead of leaving men to deal with the consequences of not doing something where only the man is affected (insert NAMALT and NAWALT disclaimer).

But there needs to be a certain 'baseline' to avoid living in squalor, on junk food, children and animals being neglected or not given stimulation and activities, money being wasted, etc etc.

A couple of recent threads on here illustrate this, the one about the despairing wife who's husband is neglecting their 4 cats, meaning they're shitting all over the house, which is obviously bad enough but she's pregnant so not safe to do the litter trays, not that it should be up to her, as it was him who wanted the cats.

So he's not even meeting the basic standard but then there was another thread by a woman complaining that she 'had' to sort the gifts for her DHs sister's baby or something because all he'd done was buy her a present and organise a family gathering or something (can't remember the exact detail but in this case what he'd done was plenty by normal expectations), but she was complaining because he'd not crocheted personalised gifts for all attendees at the event, or something equally ridiculous that she saw as necessary so she'd 'had' to do it.

Kin keeping

Arranging play dates / supporting friendships

Sourcing childcare and babysitting

Just out of interest my friends who are teachers day the big benefit of being one is they don't need holiday clubs, so never use them and just do swaps for the odd inset day.

I’d be interested to see what his list is of the kinds of things that he thinks need to be thought about daily/weekly/monthly/annually.

I also think all of the emotional labour comes into this eg holding it together while being asked endless “why” questions, asking about what’s going on at school, with their friends, offering support and advice when the kids or your aging mum has problems, having difficult puberty and relationship and “tricky people” conversations, teaching kids how to make their own beds and tidy their rooms and giving repeated reminders and coaching on these life skills…

Meal planning
Preparing for moving up schools

Homework help/monitoring
Tax

I'm not sure how you get them to do it properly. My DP is supposed to do the cleaning (never does) - the other day I said can you do the cleaning and make sure you clean the bathroom (which should be obvious surely?) - so he just cleaned the bathroom and nothing else (like it was a favour for me) - and he didn't do it properly- he took things out of the bathroom to clean and didn't put them back and put bathmats in laundry and didn't replace- so i still ended up doing it...
he was away for 3 weeks recently and although i had to do more it was less stressful as i didn't have the tension of having to nag/get wound up

Plus actually spending quality time with the children talking about their day and being there for when they want to offload about who was mean to them or what happened that was unfair etc.
Managing arguments between siblings to help reduce conflict without raising your voice and without just bollockung them to be quiet (not always achievable).
Caring for scraped knees and poorly tummies without just slapping a plaster on / dishing out Calpol and sending them away.
On top of all the mega admin/ management tasks this ongoing coaching and mentoring role is what builds love, trust and connection with your children
As kids grow up and realise that it's mostly/only mom that does this I think there's a lot that happens to kids.

1. They prioritise you as the main parent - they hurt themselves, they call for you not dad - exhausting but soul enriching for you / liberating but disconnecting and irrelevant-ifying for him.
2. They see this intraparental relationship as the way life is done - which I think is harmful to both sexes.

Boys might grow up expecting women to put him first and girls might grow up expecting to put men first. You can see how that cycle perpetuates in the most vivid and extreme ways in misogynistic cultures today, where women's rights are being stripped away, forcing them to raise kids in this horrendous subjectivity which clearly creates a toxic miserable violent dictatorial society. In contrast societies with the most equality between men and women, with the most women in powerful positions and with the best paternity leave norms and highest levels of part time dads are more likely to be stable, peaceful, liberal democracies which focus on inclusion and have the highest scores on population happiness indices. It amazes me how more men don't seek a better balance of these responsibilities given the connection with the children it creates taxi-ing them around and being the gatekeeper of play dates. I would hate to feel superfluous in our family set up, but other than contributing to household finances, that's what so many men seem desperate to be. I think this Fair Play stuff is essential to all families and if it works could improve mental health of both parents, improve family relationships all round including parents with kids, prevent a load of divorces, paternal alienation, improve male mental health etc etc. Sorry for going off on a tangent! I'm going to check this book out 😝

We have two DC, one a baby and one five, and both work full time.

Poor kids.

Check every room to see if there needs to be vacuuming or surfaces wiping down.

Putting the bins out on the right days.

Sort the recycling.

Make a list of Xmas cards to be sent, buy cards, write them, post them.

Find out what the kids want / need for Xmas and be able to tell relatives.

Throw out food that has gone off / out of date.

Order prescriptions, even if that is for your contraceptive pills (if you take them).

Organise flu vaccine for 5 year old and possibly both f you.

Organise haircut(s) for you, him, and both children. All the better if you have highlights or something that needs more time.

If your 5 year old has long hair then learn how to put it up, plait it, put in pigtails etc.

Ensure there are enough toilet rolls and tampons.

Getting and returning library books for the children.

Washing, not just clothes but bedding, tea towels, towels etc.

Poor kids? WTF?!

Constantly restocking the nappy bag/going out bag with nappies/wipes/change of clothes/snacks/refilled water bottles. Planning presents/cards from the kids for father's day, family birthdays, friends' birthdays, christmas. And my all-time pet hate (only started because day-care introduced it and my son wondered why we didn't have one) Elf on the Shelf 😭

Read what I quoted.

It seems like you’re saying that you feel sorry for the kids because they have full-time working parents?

or it's a joke because it could read like the poor kids have to work full time?

This.

I Don't mind doing life admin.
I try and make it as simple/ easy as possible

Direct debits.
Don't do cards
Routine for housework ie. Monday ironing Tuesday- beds etc.
dh can do the hard stuff - wash cars, DIY. Mown lawn/ cut hedges
We may do different things but it's a ream effort.