To think that “mental load” is just another way to moan about normal adult life?

[ByNimbleCrow]

Everyone has responsibilities. Why do women act like keeping track of household tasks is some unique burden?

As someone who came across the ‘mental load’ cartoon pre children, I’d say it’s a much more meaningful concept when you’ve got children in the household. And gender stereotypes run much stronger, even if they’re not really there within your household they are very much there externally.

Some examples:
Any dad who turns up somewhere with a child looking bedraggled and with unbrushed hair and non matching shoes will get a reaction from general passers by of either ‘aren’t they good spending time with their children’ or ‘oooh, it’s been a tough morning’ or ‘didn’t their mum sort things before you went out’. Whereas if you do that as the mum the default response is that you’re not coping. So as the mum you carry the permanent mental load of having/making sure thats all sorted.

Ill child at nursery - they’ll call mum first. Every. Single. Time. So if your child is borderline you have to be the one with the plan. Even if that plan is to screen the call and not answer, or have a quick way of getting hold of other parent.

Whereas pre children- it was between the two of us to sort the household stuff and there was no real external expectation on who did what. Boiler broke - flick through diaries and work out who can stay in. Boiler repair person doesn’t judge which one of you is there. No dinner in the house, one of you will sort something. One of you has no clean pants, they sort it themselves and no one else makes any comments.

It’s weird, soon as you add children there’s this default expectation that the mum will make sure nothing gets missed. And you don’t like looking like a rubbish mum. So you do it.

Yes, it does need a deeper conversation. But I do think that, in addition to men needing to step up and expectations around men’s role in a household needing to improve and evolve, we also need to face up to the parts where some women are complicit in maintaining an unfavourable status quo by not questioning or resisting it.

Wow! I am actually really triggered by this post OP @ByNimbleCrow
The mental load is real and so is weaponised incompetence. The reality is most women are exhausted from it. Throw in a demanding full time job, young DCs/elder DPs and it’s back-breaking work. It’s a full time job on top of your actual full time job. So please don’t gaslight us.

@faerietales Do you seriously think men show this side to themselves when they're trying to win you over? No. They cook, clean, look after their nieces and nephews to show you what an amazing dad they will be. It is only after you have kids together that you find out for real what kind of parent/partner they actually are in real life. And then its too late. So don't blame the women. It is always the fault of the person who does the wrong thing.

If a father can’t organise Christmas and birthday presents, buy school uniforms, organise hobbies, I’d be questioning their suitability as a parent.
Do these fathers not have jobs where they need to organise themselves, make decisions - are they incompetent or just lazy?

Mental load isn’t just household. Although that can be a big chunk depending what’s going on or how far you let it slip.

Its all mental lists of to dos. Work, memory, social, personal, scheduling

I am on maternity at the moment so don’t have work load and my scheduling is quite / personal / social is quite light. I have been trying to reduce the mental load to as low as possible and it’s made me realise money and time really help with that.

I am doing Amazon orders nearly everyday at the moment. Every time there’s something we need I am ordering stockpile of it. So rather than one handwash in the shop when we need it. I just ordered 3L of handwash for refilling.

That might sound insignificant but I have done that for all manner of things. Have even automated the shopping using an app.

So YABU, if your not struggling you either organised and on top of things, don’t have much going on, and or have time and money to sort it out.

I think I’ve obviously misunderstood what people mean when they are talking about mental load. I assumed they meant ‘worrying’ about significant stuff - about SEND kids (diagnosis, support in school, treatment, therapy etc), partners’ job when redundancies are being discussed, coping with bereavement when a parent or your BFF is diagnosed with/dies from cancer, how to manage CoL when your mortgage has just doubled along with utility bills but your salary in real terms has remained the same since the pandemic, supporting a teen through fucking up their GCSEs or talking the other teen back on track when they’ve had a breakdown in 6th form.

Never once did I think it was about keeping track of when your car needs an MOT, changing the bedding every couple of weeks or keeping on top of the laundry for 4 people - because, yes, that’s just normal ‘adulting’.

Same.

I think one of the reasons we get threads like this is because "mental load" isn't the problem. The problem is "having a shit husband". It's not a problem that's unique to women and it's not a problem that women with good partners identify with. But whenever you say that, no one ever seems to want to reflect on why they chose to marry and have kids with someone who would dump the entire household admin on them. (I have noticed a correlation between "I want a traditional masculine man" in the dating stage and, later, "why does my husband think all domestic work is women's work" though.)

I'm certain DP has more of a mental load than I do, because my approach to household chores is very much the bare minimum.

The people who struggle with it will have a different situation to you.

for example a married couple with no kids, health issues or major stresses on life who are financially secure and can offset some areas of life to cleaner/gardener etc are likely to find the mental load manageable.

A single parent with disabilities who has several children with disabilities,no support network and limited funds is likely to find the mental load extremely difficult.

Yeah and news flash you’d still be going grocery shopping even if single or childless. How hard is it to go down the baby aisle or pick kids foods or pick a 2L of milk instead of 1L or an 18 pack eggs instead of 6 pack? You’d still be meal planning if single and childless if that’s something you tend to do.

For DC and dentist, it’s not any extra either as I’d book us all in at once…,4 dentist and 4 hygienist appts all back to back. Yeah it meant 2hrs to go to the dentist but that’s only twice a year to get us all done. So I got an extra hour in a waiting room to catch up on a novel or work emails and my DC had free screen time or colouring books or a book to read.

Yeah I don’t think “life admin” or packing for a holiday is particularly taxing tbh. Along with booking doctors appointments and after school clubs.

I’ve only ever heard of ‘a mental load’ on Mn. In reality it’s not an issue as it’s part of being an equal parent and contributing to family life.
Parenting is a full time job by both parents, as is being a husband/wife with a paid career on top.

I disagree about having a good husband ensures you don’t have a mental load. I still carry the mental load, children’s parties, presents, school mum friendships, dressing the kids so that the outfit matches etc. this doesn’t mean I have a shit husband. He is much more focused on fixing things in the house, mowing the lawn, putting the bins out etc.

Oh, come on - there's a MASSIVE difference between having a child before you find out he's useless, and then choosing to carry on having multiple other children with someone you know is useless. Pretending otherwise is just silly.

It's not blaming women to say that they need to take responsibility for their behaviour - if he didn't step up for your first child, why in the ever-loving fuck would you have a second child, or a third? It's just madness.

Yes, you can't predict how someone will parent but you don't have to stay with a shit parent and continue procreating with them either! Let's credit women with some intelligence.

Yeah, but as I said subsequently, even when he was home for mealtimes I would have already done the batch cooking, so it's a moot point by then. But my husband and his baby feeding skills are not the point - it was a small example of something that women may take on responsibility for, for all sorts of good reasons, and then just keep.

Default roles is exactly right - and that's what's happening with the mental load. Women are just slipping into the role of "person who knows everything about what the kids need." I'm in two different class WhatsApp groups and it's all mums. I know one father who openly jokes about having to check with his wife when his own kids' birthdays are.

And, you know, these threads are always filled with comments like "stop making a mountain out of a molehill," "just get on with it," "ordering something online takes two minutes," but it's precisely the just getting on with it that lands women in this situation in the first place. Women realises kid needs new shoes, women orders new shoes, shoes arrive. Man says "oh good, he needed new shoes!" The question we need to ask is why is the woman realising first, or, if the man realised then why didn't he act? I do find it interesting and I think it goes into culture and gender roles.

ByNimbleCrow
Adult covers all genders, not solely women. If all household tasks fall to one partner then it is a load (physical and mental because a "to do" list needs to be done, delegated or discarded).

To answer your question, it can be a "unique burden" to any gender. Historically, tradition dictated that household tasks are left to women (to remember and undertake).

Despite many women in the workplace, women can still be left with all or the majority of domestic tasks. Obviously, this would be considered a burden, unique to women.

I think it’s just recognition that normal adult life isn’t just the physical tasks (cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry, gardening etc) but that there are also a load of mental tasks (managing bills and finances, managing appointments, remembering birthdays/ anniversary’s, school admin etc).

I think the point of referring to the mental load is because for household responsibilities to truly be split fairly the mental load needs to be taken into account, so you might split household tasks 50/50 but if one household member is managing all of the admin/‘mental load’ tasks whilst the other takes no responsibility for all of them things are still not going to feel equal. It’s not about the mental load being something additional outside of adult responsibilities, however it’s about recognising that there are tasks which exist outside of the obvious day-to-day household tasks and that these tasks also take up energy so should be considered when looking at how much each person in a household is doing. These tasks, like cooking, cleaning, laundry etc, are mostly only a burden women moan about when their partner isn’t pulling their weight, not something being moaned about because it’s not seen as part of adult life.

I admit to sometimes do an eye roll when some threads talk about life admin / mental load but it is real and I think alot of it is due to resentment that the other adult in the household isn't pulling their weight. I find it much easier dealing with everything for house and dc now it's only my responsibility - I have a longterm dp but dc and house mine, rather than when married to dc father who left it all to me ( scarily when dc father died, I found it even easier)

I agree that ‘managing household responsibilities’ is part of normal, adult life, @ByNimbleCrow - but, if that is the case, why aren’t men taking an equal share of it? Why is it mainly women who are expected to keep track of all their life admin, plus the life admin for their children and, all too often, their partner too?

Women complain about it because all too many men duck out of their share of these responsibilities, and dump them all on their wife/partner, and that is not fair - especially as many, if not most women are also holding down jobs, so the men no longer have the excuse that they are out working and their wife is at home, looking after the house and kids, so it is a reasonable division of responsibilities for her to have to take on all the mental load of home and family.

I only found it a burden or out the ordinary was when there were three kids in primary school and each doing swiming and a group each - as frankly the constant e-mails last minutes notices or demands poor communciation and changes in ways they communicated information and often expectation of mind reading from parents- and kids not quite being old enough to be reliable but needing you to sort stuff out for them still.

Though not sure it was mental load but found it annoying round hoildays as DH just packed for him while I had to pack for 4 people as well as getting last min washing and drying done and DH couldn't understand why I made it a big deal and found it stressful despite pointing it out. As soon as kids could pack for themselves - which as I was also slowly teaching them how when I was packing for them happend at much younger age than I expected - all that stress was just gone.

The only other stress was him double or triple booking that would happen as DH said he could do something and then double or triple book something else -- it was expected I'd sort it as soon as I just refused and pushed back on that later than I should have it stopped happening. Used a family wall palnner and point blank refused to be responsible for updating his work calander - he got told and often reminded and then it was all up to him. Plus once hit teen years would often by teens doing reminding.

Most of time though DH does pull his fair share and once kids get older and capabale of doing or reminding you things need doing the mental load goes back to being everyday life.

@takealettermsjones I x-posted with you about your DH working away.

I agree that it's a society-wide issue but I also don't think that's an excuse for tolerating poor behaviour within your own home and family. Change will never happen unless we force it.

Well that's just a normal "mental load" for your lifestyle though. Everyone has one (including your husband).

"Mental load" becomes a problem when one partner has to take it on disproportionately. And the problem there is the partner.

Sloppy dressed kid- I gave zero fucks what people think. My DC dressed themselves from age 2 anyway

Sick child- yes even though DH was listed as primary, they still called me as the mum. I simply told them DH was the contact and to keep trying to contact him and hung up. Not my problem.

Boiler break- that’s a man thing so DH would have to take off work to be there so a tradesman wouldn’t get tempted to faff about and overcharge.

I guess there is a default expectation, but I was never pressured by it. We just forged our own way because many of societies “rules” we think are batshit and sexist.

There would be no "mental load" to speak of if every adult carried the load equally. They don't though. Not in my household or any household I know. Some men do try to make an effort, but I don't think I've ever see a household where its genuinely 50/50. I see women who work longer hours in more demanding jobs, and they still end up doing the majority of the housework, admin, childcare etc. while the men just go out and do their "hobby".

When my dc were small 30 years ago no one ever mentioned the mental load.
There wasn’t any online shopping or communication so dealing with schools, meals and groceries, insurance, appointments etc always involved being present or using the phone.
I worked pt but had friends who worked full time.
I can honestly say it was no big deal and when pp’s list the mental load as one of their chores I roll my eyes.
As for weaponised incompetence that only exists for as long as you put up with it.

Also nobody was triggered 30 years ago either.