Is the "Mental Load" exaggerated.

[whatnow123]

I know the concept of the "mental load" gets a lot of discussion, so bear with me here. My wife and I have three kids (twins who are 5 and an 8-year-old), and I used to agree that I didn’t carry my share of the mental load. But two years ago, my wife got a big promotion that required her to work away a lot, so I condensed my hours and took over most of the household tasks—cooking, cleaning, organizing, etc.

The first couple of months were chaotic, but soon things settled. Life felt more relaxed without the usual structure: bath times and bedtimes slipped a bit, the house wasn’t always tidy, favorite clothes weren’t always washed, I’d order takeout when family visited, and holidays were planned last minute etc etc Yet, there were no real issues.

Now that my wife is home more, she's stressed about how things are organised and once again the "mental load" is bringing her mood down. She admitted that it seriously annoyed her how lax i was with things, but obviously she wasn't home a lot so had to ignore.

Am I being unreasonable to think that much of the stress of the “mental load” comes from pressures we put on ourselves, and that with the right mindset, it doesn’t have to be anywhere near as overwhelming?

There's a huge difference between getting everything done and getting everything done well. I don't think you'd be much use as the employee who always does the former!

The reason you don’t worry about the mental load is because your wife is carrying it.

Is this a wind up or are you for real? You have no idea, clearly aren”t shouldering the load, feeling smug and they having the audacity to question if there is a mental load.

Are you the same kind of man that things being kicked in the nuts is comparable to childbirth? Your wife is still carrying the load and she knows it. You don’t because you never did. Crack a book.

Yep. This!

Do you not bother vaccinating your kids then? Taking them to the dentist? Do they not have birthday parties? Or car seats? Or holiday / after school clubs - maybe they just sit at home and amuse themselves while you’re working? I guess you don’t budget or do any financial planning? Not bothered to check whether your DC need glasses, or new shoes? Are you pretty chill about whether your car has a valid MOT?

It all needs doing - it needs remembering and planning and executing. Sure it’s not rocket science but it takes up endless annoying little bits of time all over the place, and it really adds up if you’re the only one who can be arsed remembering to do any of it, and you’re also working full time and commuting and keeping on top of the packed lunches and laundry and other automatic day to day stuff.

But maybe your partner does all this and that’s why it seems to you like pointless filler. Vaccinations, shmaccinations!

It's not easy for me - I find it all incredibly difficult. I imagine he finds it easy because he doesn't have ADHD and has a lower (but adequate) standard for house and family related tasks.

If we lowered our standards/ didn't have ADHD I'm sure we'd find it a lot easier too. Surely that's preferable to being miserable and making the kids miserable as a result.

What's invalidating and upsetting is you calling what he does (which sounds better than my best efforts at balancing home and work life) a "very much inadequate" job.

I have a (working outside the home) friend who does ALL the child related stuff. I asked what her husband did and she said he got the bills paid. There is no comparison!

I used to buy bits for my kids for months before Christmas. Still do actually and they're grown ups! I used to pick up on little things they said - I didn't really ever ask them to make lists, because I didn't need them to! - and put so much thought and effort into buying them presents they didn't realise they wanted until they got them!

dH insisted on wrapping them. His were wrapped as a child, mine weren't. Guess who wrapped them all on Christmas Eve. I only kept on doing it because it added to the kids' excitement.

You are missing the whole point. But you can, because your wife probably isn't.

What it boils down to for me is that every day/week we have a number of shortcuts/get out of jail free cards - things like a takeaway, skipping teethbrushing, letting the housework slide a bit. Not brilliant but ok sometimes. If one partner uses all these cards, the other is left without any. And therefore has to do the food shop and make sure the kids don’t get scurvy, raise voices to get teeth done, run the hoover round/do dishes before the next week starts or a visitor arrives. And it’s shit if you find your so-called partner routinely uses all the cards.

OK you know what the kids want for Christmas and won't fret now because you'll buy it nearer the time. Do your children each get one gift only? No stockings, other smaller presents, a present from a distant relative who sends money and asks you to buy (wrap and label) something from them? Who else do your family give presents to? Relatives, school friends, neighbours, teachers etc

Perhaps you are coping better with the 'mental load' because you are able to rationalise that you can forget about Christmas until December. I think many women/mums are running a constant checklist in our heads because we are worried things will get forgotten otherwise

My mental load isn't about how things get done. It's because I'm the ONLY one who does them.

I had a migraine this morning. Still had to get up because no way DH would think to get up in time to get DS up for an appointment (he takes him to) and think to put the washing on. He hasn't done the paltry two housework jobs he has, because he hasn't even thought about it. Or read the school newsletter for things we need to know/attend. And remind him to ask work for that time off. And prompt him to check it's been approved. I'm also arranging DD's orthodontist treatment. DH will take her if I ask, but I'm arranging appointments etc and now looking to the future to save for the expensive treatment she'll need. I've also bought all Xmas gifts. DH missed his DF's birthday because I refuse to prompt him.

I also discovered DH was 'managing' our finances by ignoring them & we were going nowhere. I took over & paid out house off in 8 years. We could afford it, but he wasn't interested in paying attention to it.

He's fully capable when it's something that he's interested in (like his hobby). So it's not competence, but care.

I could go on, but the point is, it's exhausting having to make sure everything gets done because it's not a mental priority to my husband.

Acceptable to whom?

I agree that the bar is subterranean for men and they’ll be praised to high heaven for taking their own child to the park and buying them a lolly, and that’s wrong. Society needs to expect more from men.

I really disagree about the conditioning as a woman to uphold these standards and constantly fear being judged lest you don’t Dettol the bog twice a day and forgot your MIL’a favourite brand of biscuits. I’ve literally never felt anything even close to this. I’m a woman, just to make that totally clear. But I find on MN this idea of being conditioned your whole life to people please and run around after everyone and cultivate some Stepford-type home is really overstated. I really couldn’t give a fuck if my neighbour was desperate for a piss and saw some skid marks or crumbs on my carpet.

I leave washing up in the sink overnight, don’t change my bedsheets weekly, don’t wear makeup or look stereotypically feminine, have absolutely no interest in or intention of managing my partner’s relationships with his family, and neither will I be caring for my parents in old age (I’ve told them this). I choose to prioritise myself. I’m not some kind of freak or wizard with special powers to avoid social conditioning, I just…don’t care. Sure, some people might have certain expectations of how women should behave and conduct their lives but does nobody stop and think “hang on, what’s more important right now, the 000.1% chance that Bill from number 42 might knock on the door about to piss himself, or the fact that I’m stressed and knackered and want to sit down and watch eastenders in my trackies rather than scrub the toilet with a toothbrush?”

Out of every time I've ever read a post by a man on Mumsnet telling women how they are doing it wrong this is the most clueless.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4852879-aibu-to-hate-the-term-mental-load?page=1

Thought I was getting a sense of deja vu...

Plenty of additional insight here that stretched to 40 pages. Hold onto your hat OP - it's gonna be a bumpy ride and a long night.....

I dropped by a school mum’s house one day and she was raging that she’d had a new cleaner in (they both work busy jobs and have three kids), and ‘look at how filthy the place is’. The place looked IMMACULATE to me. Everyone has different standards and tick boxes. Your way of cleaning sounds fine to me, but some of my friends or even my dh would be seeing red. Ye might need to get figuring this out together somehow

This is a really good way of describing it.

This thread has taken on a life of its own, so here’s some clarification:

All essential tasks—doctor, dentist, and other appointments—were handled as planned and booked well in advance. The kids ate well, with a mix of home-cooked meals and the occasional takeaway.

Bedtimes shifted by half an hour during the week and by an hour on weekends, but not regularly. The house stayed clean and generally tidy, even if it wasn't "show-home" pristine.

I handled the day-to-day: organizing clubs, playdates, school trips (where I volunteered as a helper), and ensuring they never missed a birthday party. I even keep a stock of cards and presents ready.

Things weren’t flawless, but looking back, and reading this thread I managed more of the mental load than I’d realized. As some of the stuff I'd been doing i didn't even consider as the mental load

I agree, I like this description but given that OP's wife worked abroad for long periods of time, it doesn't sound like this applies here as she wasn't there day-to-day to pick up the slack/make up for the over use of the get out of jail cards.

All essential tasks—doctor, dentist, and other appointments—were handled as planned and booked well in advance. The kids ate well, with a mix of home-cooked meals and the occasional takeaway.

What do you man handled as planned? Did you plan/book/take the kids to these appointments? How did you know to book these?
Or were these pre booked by your wife?

Nice backpedal there OP 😂

I agree. People put a lot of pressure on them for everything to be perfect and orderly and it's that internal pressure that makes things so heavy.

This "Mental Load" is one of the most annoying phrases used on here. The same as " Life Admin"

I've never heard these terms used outside Mumsnet, I just get on and do things without giving them extremely annoying names.

It doesn't take a mental load to wash and feed children at appropriate times, even with two full time workers in the house

I think these tasks take on the annoying names when you have to talk about them to the person who’s not doing any of it, and doesn’t see that any of it needs doing, and has literally zero concept that there are any other categories of human activity apart from paid work and leisure.